Paint Spray Booths has been the traditional method for covering and protecting metal substrates. Wet painting tends to be a more flexible method than Powder Coating as it allows the user to coat products that are heat sensitive and it can also be manipulated to provide a thinner coating which powder cannot.
Pre-Treatment
Before the process of wet paint covering can begin the metal needs to be treated in a pre-treatment oven to ensure that it is free of any dirt or debris which may detract from the overall finish. These pre-treatment ovens use gas to fire up the tank that heats the solution to clean the metal. PB Metal Finishing has designed a heat-exchange Spray Save System that can reduce the gas usage of these ovens by around 90%, meaning that a company that undertakes a lot of spray painting work can save thousands annually in gas costs.
What Are the Main Benefits?
The major benefit of wet paint is that it can be used to coat materials that are sensitive to high temperatures and therefore cannot be heated. It may take more than one coat but wet paint succeeds here where powder methods fail.
Wet paint is available in a much wider range of colours meaning that customised finishes are much easier and less costly to produce. It can also allow for a much thinner finish if required, a thickness of 15-20 micrometres can usually be expected. Lastly, wet paint is more economical than powder but these savings can be negated by the limited lifespan of wet paint when compared to powder.
Applications
Wet paint can be used on a variety of items including products for agriculture, automotive and electrical products. Due to its low cost, it is especially useful for small batch runs of products or for matching metallic colours where powder cannot.
