Seal the Deal
Spray booths run at a slightly negative pressure, meaning contamination in different forms can easily find its way in and around the booth. Despite them being easy to spot due to the typical dark over-spray type marks through the leaking area, failed joints or seals in the booth structure are often overlooked. Be sure to keep up-to-date with booth maintenance, replacing broken/missing seals and filling any gaps.
Protecting your Booth
Cleaning a booth can be made a much simpler task by protecting the booth itself from over-spray. There are many booth-protection products available on the market in different forms – whether it be a peelable, tacky coat; or a film for the walls.
Peelable Booth Coating – Liquid or spray-on treatments that give a tacky coating. When needed peel them off and re-coat.
Self-Adhesive Film – This is simple to install and remove and is available in many lengths and widths. Just imagine a giant screen protector for your spray booth.
Air Hose Protective Sleeves
“What is air hose protective sleeve?”, you might be wondering. This is one that many of you may have not used previously, but it is certainly something that I recommend. This is a simple polyethylene film that keeps the air hose clean. You may have seen a similar item used in a tattoo parlour keep the tattoo equipment clean. They allow paint over-spray to stick to the film without flaking off. They are disposable – when the sleeve gets dirty remove it from the air hose and slip on a new length.
Flooring
This one is mainly aimed at those of you with side or rear extraction booths with a concrete floor. Short-pile carpets seem to be making an extremely positive impact in these types of booths. The carpet will stop dirt from lifting, trapping it in the fibres of the carpet. However, this does mean that it is necessary to vacuum the carpet to clean it, just as you would in a house environment. The alternative to this (but not one that I recommend), is wetting the booth floor. This certainly does work, but will create moisture and can lead to problems with the paintwork.
Strike a Pose
Most people want to have a good appearance, and us painters are no different. However, many of the things we would like to do to better our personal physical appearance can actually be detrimental to the cleanliness of a job. For example, make-up and hair products that we might commonly use on a day-to-day basis can easily find their way out of an air-fed mask and on to our fresh paintwork, contaminating the surface. Try to fight the urge when you know your next date is with a vehicle in the paint booth.
Anti-Static Guns
Static is the invisible enemy of the perfect paint finish. Most people appreciate that static charge is a major cause of imperfections in a paint job. Not only this, static can cause non-consistent lay down of metallic particles leading to patchiness in a finish. My preferred method for removing static effectively is to use an anti-static gun, before, during and after paint application. There are many of these now on the market. My personal go-to anti-static gun is by the company Static Solutions.
Clear out the Clutter
As simple as it might be, as the subheading states, clear out the clutter. I often go into a spray booth and notice what I like to call a “naughty corner”, typically containing mask tape; a panel stand not in use; masking cutters etc. Due to any bits of over-spray, dust and particles etc that might be on such objects, having them laying around in the booth, not in use can have a negative impact on the cleanliness of a job.
These are just a few factors to consider when trying to achieve a clean finish on a paint job. By all means, not all of them are mentioned here. This article should hopefully act as a refresher and will be food for thought on this matter.
By Craig Bourke -The_Specky_Painter
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