A big thank you to Iwata
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As some of you know, I paint in a very busy production shop, and this week saw me reaching my first ever ‘century’
At 08:15 GMT, I finished painting my 100th car of the week! :woohoo:
Working on an average of 2½ panels per car, that’s a lot of paint, and I couldn’t have done it without the quality, consistency and reliability of my Anest Iwata guns, so I have to thank them for that.
My weapons of choice:
W400 LV2 1.3 for primer/sealer
W400 WBX 1.3 for water borne basecoat
WS400 Supernova 1.3 for clearcoat.I’m off for a well earned afternoon nap now to recharge my batteries ready for next weeks onslaught :blink:
Cheers,
Andy.Good god Andy, that’s a lot of cars. I don’t think I have ever even done half of that. That’s amazing!
Have you ever got a chance to try the WS400 basecoat version? I got a chance to use the LS400 with Sikkens base and have to say it did a great job with it.
get a Sata and you’ll be able to do 200 😉
give your arm a rest this weekend. it needs itNot exactly Ryan, although I did pick the wrong gun up early one morning and put base in the WS400 clear. It came out great :lol1
My mate at DeBeer / HOK technical has though, and in his personal opinion it’s the best base gun there is, but feels the new Sata 4000 holds the crown for best clear gun, followed closely by my WS400.
Ding – if I had to lug a big Sata around all day my arm really would need a rest 😉 😆
The LS400 over here is too slow for the clear I use. It’s impossible to get a WS400 to try over here.
With all that painting you need to sit back and enjoy a few too many beers! :cheers I bet you were busier than a one legged man in an *** kicking contest.
I understand they’ve released an LS400H with higher fluid output to address that issue. Might be worth a try 🙂
And yes, I was running around like a headless chicken, as we say over here. As well as throwing on all of that paint, I had to organise the workload for my 3 guys; sorting out the most efficient order in which to do the jobs from the constantly changing stock in our back yard. Making sure that if one prep guy was tied up for a few hours on one of our bigger jobs, that I found plenty of smaller jobs for me and my other prep guy to get ready so I had a constant flow of cars waiting to paint. Then of course QC-ing the cars after the finishing guy had done with them.
And somewhere in between all that lot I had to find time for the mundane stuff like making sure we had enough paint and materials to last, without upsetting the owner by overstocking; making sure all the paperwork was done and each job was logged properly (we get a bonus paid per car finished, so I daren’t miss any, lol), and most importantly – flirting with the office girls :whistle:
I’m trying out my new guy in the booth next week, so I should be able to take it (relatively) easy :kofee
Those are very impessive numbers,I’m having a busy week if I do 30 :p What kind of paint do you use over there?? Do you use upol products?
that is incredible. i dont think i reached 10 a week ever
[quote=”Jayson M” post=17709]Those are very impessive numbers,I’m having a busy week if I do 30 :p What kind of paint do you use over there?? Do you use upol products?[/quote]
I use a couple of Upol products – mainly their Easy One filler for the bigger jobs. Sanding materials are a mixture of Mirka & 3M, and for the most part we use the cheapest masking products we can find! The exception to that is the newish 3M Smooth Transition Tape. It is an absolute Godsend with our kind of work, and I don’t know how we ever managed without it. It gets my vote for best product of 2010.
Paint is DeBeer 900 series water borne base, with their 8-214 scratch resistant clearcoat.
The base is an absolute dream to apply and pretty quick drying (especially since I run my booth at over 80°F). The clear is a high solids one, so most panels are done in a single visit. i.e. one dust coat, wait a few seconds, then pile on a wet one. Big flat panels like roofs and bonnets (hoods) get one thin coat, 2-3 minutes flash, then a full one. That gives them just that little bit more build to allow for a good flat & polish if they’re full of crap. The low solvent content means entrapment isn’t an issue 🙂
Have you ever heard of the ez-edger? I have tried the transition tape and it was ok but the easy edger just uses regular ol masking tape,pretty handy.http://www.ezedger.com/
The more I hear about debeer paint I really want to try it how are the color matches? Is it a user friendly system??I use sikkens autowave and superior 250 clear and it works for us.
I don’t think we have that upol filler here,all we can get in Canada is flyweight gold,and fantastic,dolphin glaze,liquid gold putty,all very nice IMO.Does the easy one filler sand real nice??
Do you just walk in and spray and have helpers to mix paint,prep,mask,blow and tack?Just curious how you guys do it at such a big scale.Thanks
Cheers Jason. Someone has mentioned that ez edger to me before, but I’d forgotten about it. Sure I can fold it that way by hand over my knee, but that looks a nice piece of kit.
I’ve really gotten to like the DeBeer system, after changing over from ICI/Nexa/Autocolour. I find it very user friendly, with the best computerised mixing scheme I’ve ever used. Have a look on YouTube for ShopSmart DeBeer, you’ll find all of the product videos.
As for helpers – I wish! 😆
I oversee a team of four, with one guy doing the de-mask and polishing where required, and two guys doing the preparation work (sand, fill, prime etc) We don’t do crash repairs or anything heavy like that, so we very rarely change any panels.
The prep guys go as far as they can, and edge out with masking tape, but from there on in it’s up to me. I pull the car in the booth, sheet it up with plastic film, clean, blow, tack & spray. I’ll generally be mixing the colour for my next job while the base is drying, and mixing my clear while the final light ‘drop’ coat of base is flashing.
I aim to do each job in half an hour. That way as soon as the adjacent bake oven is empty (30 minute cycle) I can slide the job straight across into it, then bring the next car into the booth for masking. Once you get into a rhythm it’s surprising how many cars you can get done.
I have to say I agree with you on the new foam tape from 3M Andy. I don’t like the older version much at all. I use the E-Z Edger for most of my taping but have just recently tried some of the new foam tape and have to say it is leaps and bounds better than the old. It doesn’t leave the nasty edge the old did.
Do you have to do much panel painting on jobs Andy or do you try to blend everything? Debeer over here is quite pricey compared to the UK. How do you feel it stacks up compared to Nexa and Lechler?
100 cars in one week.. God damm how many hours a day were you working?? we work from 6 in the morning till 5 at night when we are flat out and put out about 5 to 6 jobs a day depending on size..
sweet!
so much for all the whiners saying Iwatas are slow. EAT IT! :rock
If ya notice there Bob he uses compliant guns not the ultra slow LPH-400 :p
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