Andy Taylor
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Better late than never! :blush:
First thing I’d say is that nothing I’ve worked in compares to a full floor exit downdraft for evenness of temperature and airflow, but some have been better than others.
One booth had been converted from pit extraction to side wall. There was definitely a cold side, with the heat noticeably coming in at the centre of the roof and travelling down to one side where the extract was. Another had exits along the length of both side walls, down at floor level. That was as near as dammit ideal, with a really even spread of heat and airflow.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean when you say semi downdraft, but I used a booth with inlet at the top front, and exit at the rear floor which I think is the same kind of thing. That worked fairly well, but again there was a definite dead area low down towards the front.
These cold spots can always be worked around if you are just doing one area of a car, by turning it around or moving it over to one end or side of the booth to ensure you are working in the area of best flow, but that doesn’t help on a complete.
And I agree with Jayson about the gridded floor on a downdraft! I’ve come home limping some days when I’ve knelt down funny on one of the grids :cens
I’ve worked in a couple, but I’m on my phone in between coats so I’ll reply later when I get home.
I’m not sure I’d agree with that. It’s like comparing Sata’s and saying the HVLP was designed for base and the RP for clear. Sure that’s how a lot of people use them, and it may well give the best of both worlds, but given the right products and circumstances either gun can be used in either application.
And it’s similar with the Supernova; the LS400 is simply the lower pressure version. We don’t even get them here in the UK and have the WS400 in both Base & Clear versions.
Having said that, I have thought about importing an LS400 as I prefer the HVLP style of application for base 😆
We all work differently though mate, so if you tried the LS and it floated your boat, then by all means go for it, but I’d suggested at least trying to have a demo of the WS as you may like it even more (if it’s “compliant” enough for your area).
Hi sage.
It would have come to the booth like that, already masked by one of the prep guys. It’s not something I’d do myself regularly with there just being a few inches of panel left. Sure it saves time removing the door mirror (or saves me from having to avoid hitting it with the gun while painting!), but not really worth the effort in this case. I don’t have the time to start adjusting their masking or scuffing extra bits of panels so sometimes just have to go with what I get sent, but will mention it afterwards to save it from happening again 🙂
I do regularly do this on a rear quarter for example though. I’d much rather paint up to a body line that have an open blend up the rear pillar
Exactly Ding.
Better to have a bit of dirt in the job than kill your prep staff by blowing iso fumes out of the seals. 😉Our booth sounds an alarm then eventually shuts itself down if it senses positive pressure for too long. Can be fun on a very windy day…
Black DG is normally used as the base yes, but you can use white for a slightly different effect.
I have used basecoat in the past as a cheat, but it has to be really smooth and isn’t quite as good.
Lechler also do a version of this super fine silver, called sparkling glass (something like 06 660) and Mipa’s version (which I’ve used the most) is called Vicrom.
I’m from the UK.
We don’t call it sealer (nor do we use it much) but instead know it as wet on wet primer, or non-sanding primer. Basically a thinned down (/ over reduced) primer that is coloured over without sanding before it is fully cured.
Both DeBeer base systems are essentially the same. They simply added 13 extra (stronger) tinters a couple of years ago, changed the packaging, and started calling it 900+
The rest of the system was unchanged 😉Some time soon they are adding a few more colours to the rack, including a high strength white (thank God!), and removing some of the obsolete ones.
The sales guy is pretty much telling you the truth.
There are some differences between the product lines, but many of the products are exactly the same, just put into a different tin after manufacture. I’ve been using DeBeer for some years and occasionally when something has been out of stock we’ve been sent the Octoral equivalent.
EDIT: LKQ have been around for a while, although I’ve never really dealt with them. I hear they have just bought a large local distributor that we use occasionally.
Contractor rate makes a bit more sense. The factors you mention plus the chance that they can be out of a job at a moments notice should the work dry up means they tend to get much better rates over here too.
And I’ve had a lot of UK painters through here that are all mouth and no trousers too, so it isn’t just you that has seen that trend :lol1 Saying you’re good at something is easy, actually producing the goods consistently isn’t. I’m hoping it all works out well for this guy though. He hasn’t picked up a spray gun in the short time he’s been with us, he’s been on bodywork & prep instead, so I’ve no idea what he can do, but I still wish him all the best.
There has been talk from one of the other guys (who paints occasionally) from when he was working for BMW. Apparently one of his mates did a transfer over to Oz through BMW but found there was a fair bit of animosity towards the British guys, definitely an “us & them” feeling, which eventually caused him to return to the UK. Hopefully that was just an isolated case.
[quote=”Paintwerks” post=34912]Seems like you are being underpaid. In Melbourne Australia, I pay my guys $35 an hour.
[/quote]Wow! That’s more than double what I earn. I didn’t even get that much when I was running the place, organising the workload for the whole team, and painting 80-90 cars a week at the same time :blink:
No wonder one of the guys here is moving to your part of the world soon. He’s landed himself a job as a painter in St Kilda. Starts in around 6 weeks I think.
[quote=”ARTSPRAY” post=34840]from folk in the know i have been reliably informed that DeBeers is by far the best B grade paint system available[/quote]
Ha ha. I’ve been using DeBeer for a good few years now so would definitely agree, but I remember chatting to Kevin Cooper (DeBeer UK technical manager) after we’d been using the product for a few days and he nearly chewed my ear off for referring to it as B grade :lol1 I haven’t seen him for a while but I think he’s popping up in the next few weeks. Usually Peter (Moore) comes in once a month as he lives here in Sheffield.
He was telling me last week that there are yet more improvements on the way. The higher strength tints they introduced the other year really stepped things up, and soon they’ll be joined by a high strength white, which will hopefully sort one area where I think DeBeer is lacking slightly compared to “the big boys”
Comparing it to some of the other brands I’ve used like ICI/NEXA, Autowave and Cromax / pro, I really can’t see why anyone would want to spend the extra money. Support has always been first class too, so you can’t say you’re losing out by not paying premium prices.
[quote=”lph400user” post=34793]I will do it that way if he picks solid red but he was talking metallic green. Will the color match? Metallics “line up”? If painted in pieces? My friend painted our first project together years ago in pieces and we had to do a total respray after assembly cause all the panels were different shades[/quote]
I went a bit mad when I did a “show quality” paint job on one of my own cars. The car was sealed and based up in pieces to ensure complete coverage. It was then assembled and a couple more coats of base were applied to the outside to give me a perfect match between the panels with perfect flake orientation etc. It was then fully stripped again for clearing to ensure there were no tape edges anywhere and no dry spots anywhere, like the hard to reach areas of the jambs etc.
It was a hell of a lot of extra work and I’d want to be paid very well indeed to go that far for a customer :lol1 I’ve done several full paints and colour changes where I’ve just masked up very carefully so that I can open and close the doors, hood etc while painting to give me no tape edges by shooting the jambs and exterior in one go.
Anything is possible, it’s just a case of how far you want to take it, and how well you can think outside of the box to make it happen some times 🙂
[quote=”Zarifpour” post=34763]Will the metal cup rust after using with water?[/quote]
It should be aluminium so shouldn’t rust, but anything you’ve used with waterborne products needs to be cleaned [b]and dried [/b]thoroughly after use any way.
Just to reinforce something Jason said – you really ought to keep your water borne and solvent borne guns separate. Yes it is possible to use one gun for both products but you have to be absolutely meticulous with the cleaning process. If it were me I’d be getting one gun for water base and another for solvent base & clear.
[quote=”Painterman1″ post=34486]I need some advice on how to go about talking to my boss about me buying my own paint so I can get rid of what I’m using now[/quote]
If you worked for me I’d happily let you buy your own paint. It would save me a lot of expense :lol1