How does the analysis of paint help forensic scientists in a burglary investigation?
Another area where paint analysis comes into play is in a burglary. So a burglary may be committed and some paint from a wall may come off onto a tool that a burglar may use. In trying to link that tool to the commission of a particular burglary, if you look at the colour of the paint, the chemistry of the paint, compared to the paint coming off the wall. In respect to the automobile, what’s important, what’s critical in analyzing automobile paint is colour and layer structure. There’s a tremendous variety of automobile paint colours, a tremendous variety when it comes to the underlying layers. Of course there is the clear coat, which is the top layer of paint on the automobile which has no colour, but still offers a point of comparison when analyzing the chemistry of automobile paint.