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Crash Repair
Q. Does the paint get baked on ? I've been informed that it does.
A.
NO!
Unless a vehicle is coach painted
(Applied by brush).
99.9% of all car & light commercial finishes are applied with a spray gun.
This method has been in use for almost a century.
(1924 to be exact).
An oven, or heated booth with extraction
dries the finish at a faster rate than normal
allowing quicker curing to the finish.
The
filtered inlet & outlet takes away fall out or
(Overspray)
as it's called in the industry.
The term
(Bake).
Is actually a bit of an over
statement really as the temperatures we are talking about are no more than
Besides the actual term is (Low Bake).
than a nice day on a Greek Island.
An oven is normally used when time is an issue ! (Get it done quick).
Ovens
have some advantages, although everything has an Achilles heel. They are
mostly gas burn, they heat the surrounding environment (meaning) they heat
from the outside in. Consequently the crust dries first & fast.(A bit like a sweet
or a crust on a baked pie).
Another disadvantage is because the finish dries so fast,it has no time to flow
& as the application gun passes over the surface the air pressure causes the semi dry paint to distort which creates an effect called (Orange peel). Because
of the high temperature the paint has no time to settle & dries to this ugly,
poor & false in appearance finish. Once this happens there are only one or two
options to correct the situation & all are labour intensive time consuming
tasks. One approach is to fine sand the bad top coat until smooth with
ultra-fine wet or dry or a fine dry sand disc
system. Then re-apply a thin
further top coat at a lower temperature
to allow the coating to flow.
( Thin as to avoid too much
film depth).
More material can
& will often cause further issues as different layers can dry at different rates.(IE
pie crust effect).
A second approach is to prep as the first, though instead of
adding more material, simply polish the flatted surface with an advanced cut
compound. This is a far more bullet proof remedy ,& will also produce an
original manufacturers effect.
Turning up the temperature unfortunately is also used as a fail safe because
the greater the heat, the higher the paint atomization & the less likelihood of
a sag or paint run.
Sadly
many vehicles are dispatched in this condition which
"Totally
defeats the object".
As the general idea is to make the vehicle look as it hasn't
visited a bodyshop & not that it obviously has ?
Both of the above options in our opinion are far more versatile as the heat can
be directed, controlled & applied exactly where it's required. Plus these two
alternatives are far less costly & in our opinion much more effective.
"Why heat a full Vehicle"
When only one or two panels are being painted?
What's the point in firing up an oven & heating bits that are not being worked
on? What's more
"Who's paying for all this wasted energy"?
You don't need to
Rocket Scientist to figure out
it's you
" The Customer"
So when anybody in the
job tells you
" The paint is Baked on"!
Please refer them to ourselves as they
totally full of
SH*T !!!
hOW WE ENDED UP HERE ?
Ever heard the saying
" All the gear though No idea"?
As in many Trades,this
one hasn't escaped & quite often a new one will appear out of nowhere over
night." Fred Bloggs"
from down the road
has watched a few badly edited
called expert & is now convinced how easy this job is,
videos produced by a so
the local DIY Store to buy an under powered
so off he bounces to
compressor ,a Sh*t
the Indian Rope Trick.
paint gun & an airline so stiff it could be a
great prop for the
He just can't wait to get
shut of the Readies
& doesn't want to listen to the man in the shop
that knows F ..k all
about compressors &
"EVEN LESS"
about a paint
gun! He already knows everything there is to know about spraying a car or bike
, it's a piece of cake, he's seen the video already!
Once back at the Body Shop!
"An old converted Chicken shed in a farm out
building".
He quickly preps up his first panel, mixes his paint one to one with
some cheap thinner & begins squirting the first coat on, starting at the top &
working his way down, over lapping by the text book 50% on every pass.
"Just
like in the video he watched".
Half way down the panel he has to stop as he
begins to realize that the
"POWER COMMANDER"
Compressor he's just
given 250 quid for would struggle to blow up a kids balloon ! He has to wait a
couple of minutes while the Old Girl puffs & pants back up 80 PSI. Off he goes
again starting where he left off, at the middle working his way down. It's at
this point as he wrestles with the stiff air line to get to the bottom of the panel
he can't see his job anymore, in fact he can't see anything apart from lots of
coloured fog! Struggling to breath properly & with stinging eyes he heads for
the exit. After 20 mins or so he returns to his panel which he can now see, in a
fashion.The 100watt bulb hanging from a beam isn't really that bright.He looks
at his job in despair. The bottom half looks OK yet the top is covered in fall out
after having to stop & let that Bl**dy cr*p compressor build back pressure. He
wipes it down with a piece of an old T shirt & decides the lacquer coat will hide
the problem so goes for it.
He tries to read the instructions on the tin & is a bit confused as they are
written in a foreign language, so decides to wing it being as he hasn't quite mastered English yet. Mixing at the ratio of 2:1 plus a splash of cheap thinners
the gun is ready while in the back ground the
"Commander"
that's been going
for the last 20 minutes is now threatening almost 50 PSI. Clamping the air line
loosely with a pair of vice grips
to ease the massive strain on the compressor
of one sh*tty paint gun, he's paced up & down, psyched himself up & is ready
for the Big Splash!
He approaches the panel, gun in one hand vice grips in the other. This time
the panel is getting it. Away he goes with excellent position & distance ,the
lacquer is going on great. He's excited as it doesn't get this good. Just then
above the racket of the compressor he hears a buzzing sound. OH NO! it's
that b*st*rd Blue Bottle again. He watches in disbelief as it performs a series of low passes over the surface. He tries to out smart it with a squirt of paint
though is unsuccessful as the fly has the upper hand. It's a big mother & he can
see it's jet wash in the over spray when it goes past. He makes to the end of the panel, hangs up his gun & dives outside for a breath of fresh air.
After a 15 minute break & a well deserved fag he goes back to inspect the
job. He opens the main doors to get some daylight on the subject. As he turns around with his eyes closed, he starts to open them slowly & one at a time. His
jaw drops as his new nightmare begins to unfold. He can't believe it, the paint finish is brilliant! Though the Blue Bottle has crash landed right on the edge of
the panel & to make things worse instead of turning left onto the news paper
the F**k**g L*t**eTw*t
"Silly Little Sausage"
has swung a right & dragged itself
across the panel & seems to expiring right in the middle of it. Reminding him
of a Camels footprints crossing the Sahara Dessert , the devastation is more
than overwhelming. The paint is still wet though tacky, the
" Silly Sausage"
is
Knackered , P*ss*d off & has left various limbs all over the perfectly painted
panel on his journey to Doom.
" Freds"
only hope is to wait until morning &
start again.
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