Waterborne. Pros and cons
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Well here in Australia its going to be mandatory for body shops to be using water base from 2015. Just wondering if some of you guys could share your experiences with it and how it differs from solvent base. Good or bad
ThanksI think I’ve been on the wet stuff exclusively for around 9 years now, and put simply, for use in a booth it would take wild horses to drag me back to using solvent as I think water is superior in every way.
Maybe I’ve just been lucky with the brands I’ve used, but I can’t imagine why anyone would ever look back to be honest. Sure there’s an amount of investment needed, but if you already have a booth with decent airflow then it’s only a minor one for some air movers / blowers / dryers, and maybe a dedicated base gun if you don’t have one already, but for me the benefits far outweigh those costs.
Waterborne base does tend to be more expensive though, which could be a problem if you can’t pass that on to your customer.
I would agree with everything Andy just said. Made the changeover in early 2005 and havent looked back since.
And how do the metallics lay down? I’m thinking if it takes longer for it to dry would I be right in saying that it’s like using slow thinner in your metallics?
I wouldn’t say it does take longer to dry myself. Quite the opposite in fact, that’s one of the main reasons I prefer waterborne!
For instance if I’m blowing some base on a small area I can fan it off with air from the gun and be tacking off and applying another coat in less than 30 seconds. Try doing that with solvent.
Larger jobs can take a bit longer if you haven’t got sufficient air movement in your booth as most of us can only blow dry one area at a time, but I still feel it’s much quicker than solvent. For instance, this morning I painted a 10 panel job on a Ford Mondeo. The front end, one full side, rear bumper cover and the roof. After throwing on my (only) wet coat of base I turned to booth temp up to 35°C to help it along (no blowers were used) and went to get myself a coffee. 5 minutes later (after turning the temperature back down!) the base was dry and I was applying the drop coat, then by the time I’d mixed up some clear it was ready to go on. So less than 30 minutes from first pulling the trigger and it was on bake. Not exactly slow for such a large job. In fact it had taken longer to sheet it up and clean / tack it down than it did to paint.
Sure I’m blessed with a good booth and a quick drying base, but I’d never consider waterborne to be slow :rock
I have been using it for 5 years after 21 years of spraying solvent.If you follow the tech sheet for solvent and apply it properly you will wait 10-15 mins PER coat and wait 15-30 mins after the last coat before clear.Waterborne is just the opposite,depending on the size of the job it can be anywhere from 30 secs to minutes before you can apply your next coat and 15mins before clear.With waterborne you don’t need to worry about trapping solvents and getting dieback issues on a large job,it can happen in a production environment.IMO the jobs look better and stay glossy longer.
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