Equipment paint

[RobVG]

Equipment primer/paint is amazing- tough as nails. How do they do it? Is it baked on. Some kind of epoxy paint or what.

I haven't found anything in a rattle can that even comes close.

 

[curb guy]

Equipment primer/paint is amazing- tough as nails. How do they do it? Is it baked on. Some kind of epoxy paint or what.

I haven't found anything in a rattle can that even comes close.

Rattle cans are ok for touch-ups,I guess.I can't speak to the type of paint that OEM's use, but I have painted a lot of stuff and the toughest I've found is made by DuPont.It's called Imron. Tougher than woodpecker lips,and EXPENSIVE! Have not used any for a few years,but I'm sure they still make it.

 

[Delmer]

Second hand from a low level oem technician: there's nothing special about any of the equipment paint, it's just good paint and it's applied well. yes, baked on. But this person was involved in "greening" the formulas, reducing solvents and costs.

 

[ScottAR]

Some of it is epoxy; especially applications requiring impact resistance(like a trash body). Some is likely some urethane or another activated or 2k process. Quite a bit of it is alkyd based.

Some of the durability is due to mil thickness. Aerosol paints are thinned heavily to flow out the can affecting performance.
It would take several coats with an aerosol can to equal coverage of any spray gun.

Some of the durability is the primer used. If the OEM is using an acid cleaning process or etching primer that makes a big difference.

Without going full bore at it, there's several reasons why OEM or similar paint outperforms spray cans.

I have found that for small areas of bare metal, one of the aerosol self etching primers greatly improve aerosol paint coverage and durability. It's not as good as OEM but it's better than just paint alone by far. Also, all to be painted areas must be ***clean clean clean*** of ANY oil or contamination and any existing paint/primer should be sanded or scuffed to provide some tooth for the new paint.

Any paint is only as good as what's under it.

 

[RobVG]

Thanks for the information guys.

 

[Oxbow]

I don't know anything on the subject, but when touring the dozer assembly plant in Peoria it seems to me that they mentioned electrically charging the piece of equipment such that the paint is magnetically (for lack of the proper terminology) attracted to it.

Again, I am not sure that my recollection is correct. Perhaps others are familiar with this process?

 

[Shenandoah]

Perhaps others are familiar with this process?

I'm a little familiar with the process you may be talking about if it's what's called 'Powder Coating'. That's where a dry powder is used in place of liquid paint.

One of the big advantages is on the microscopic level. In a wet paint situation the paint has thinners, also called 'dryers', that evaporate as the paint is dried or cooked as the case may be. As the liquid evaporates it leaves microsopic holes in the paint that many times are the very nooks and crannies that make up the metal surface, again, at the microscopic level. This can be detrimental to the ability of the paint to grab hold of the surface 'teeth' on the metal. In some cases, depending on the application, the effect is equal to a 'boiling out' of the thinners/dryers leaving a crater underneath the paint where it should have filled the microscopic cavity in the metal.

The Powder Coating process theoretically has the powder melt without the disadvantages of the evaporation process taking place and creates a stronger bond between the coating and the metal. Of course, this requires proper preperation as any cleaning agent or oil that is left on the surface negates this advantage.

The positive and negative charges of the powder and the metal help the powder flow into the tiniest of cavities in the metal surface due to the electromagnetic charge.

 

[ScottAR]

I'm only familiar with the concept, not the details of the process. This is done to improve the transfer efficiency of the process. Basically getting more paint on the machine with lower overspray losses.

 

[Oxbow]

I am not sure if it was powder coating or not. Perhaps the same electromangnetic charge works with liquid paint. That was a good explanation though Shenandoah, thanks.

 

[Abscraperguy]

Most equipment paint is a urethane. Epoxies are very abrasion resistant but they don't have as good of shine retention as a urethane. The abrasion thingy is why primers are often epoxies.
The toughest paint I've ever sprayed is Endura EX-2C or Endura TF-2K. Imron is good but this is slightly harder. TF-2K is often used as an anti-graffiti paint due to its extreme hardness, smoothness, and the teflon in it. Imron is still made in fact I"m under the impression that all Pete's and KW's are painted with it. Someone can correct me on that. Endura is a smaller company out of Edmonton, Alberta. Back in the day when Canadian Airlines was still flying all their aircraft were sprayed with Endura products.
Electro-stat as was mentioned is used in powder coating and liquid spraying. It's very nice when spraying bar grating etc because it cause the paint to wrap around to all sides. Don't ask me how it works tho. I have no idea. I've heard of guys taking 110 volt power and putting the negative on the steel and the positive to paint but I think they're plenty stupid to do that.
Pardon my rambling but to get to the original poster's question. Spray bomb paint is air dry paint and equipment paint is a 2 component product. It dries by chemical reaction as well as a little air dry. For someone who wants to put good paint through a spray bomb for some touchup there is a product for you. I forget the name but it is a glass jar with a screw on canister on top with the propellant. Fill it with what you want then when done you can clean it and use it again.

 

[truckdoctor]

To comment on Imron paint if I remember correctly it is very poisonous. Without the proper respiratory equipment it will be the last paint job a person ever does. Changing subjects there is a way to electrically charge paint so it can be drawn to the metal surface. I remember reading this in an old HOT ROD magazine. Guys would hook the negative cable of a welder to the car they were painting and the positive cable to the paint gun. With low voltage the paint would be drawn to the metal because of the charge. The biggest safety issue that was pointed out is that if you get too close to the metal surface you would find yourself at the epicenter of a very large explosion. That and that the fact that having the electrical charge between the vehicle and the gun would attract all the dust and dirt in the air to the painted surface, the writer of the article did not recommend it.

 

[Shenandoah]

To comment on Imron paint if I remember correctly it is very poisonous. Without the proper respiratory equipment it will be the last paint job a person ever does.

Imron is a brand name and back in the day it was commonly referred to as "Airplane Paint". The reason for that was it was used a lot on airplanes and due to the cost, not much else. I had my 1964 Corvette painted with Imron in 1973 because, as some may remember, it produced what was called "The Wet Look" back then. Very hip.

The guy that painted it was a friend of mine who painted cars for a living. He painted it "on the side" in another friend of mine's two car garage. He lived to paint a lot more cars, but as he wasn't wearing the correct protective gear he was higher than a kite by the time he finished spraying my car. Even I was rendered mildly woozy just being near the garage.

Years later I met a guy who painted his sailboat with the stuff and immediately sailed it to Hawaii from SoCal. He said he was on a several day starboard tach where a portion of the hull was continually submerged and when he got to Hawaii the part of the hull that stayed wet didn't have the paint on it anymore. (He only painted down to the waterline with the polyurethane, btw, the bottom had regular bottom paint.)

What I came to learn is that some formulations of urethane paint don't hold up well to constant moisture. It's a function of how they are catalyzed as well as how the polymer chains develop during curing. It's pert near rocket science...

 

[Delmer]

I don't mean to argue with you Scraperguy, you obviously know more about paint than I do. I was told most "factory" paint is plain old alkyd, but this was by a person with a very narrow inside view of the industry.

I like the welder and 110 for charging the paint. Electrostatic is more like static electricity, think thousands or tens of thousands of volts, maybe use an electric fencer, or the starter off a TIG welder, or your microwave. Just kidding, don't TOUCH the insides of your microwave.

 

[ScottAR]

Personal protective gear is very important when spraying any paint but especially when spraying 2 component paints. The magic chemical in most catalyst is Isocyanate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isocyanate . There's volumes of reading about safety procedures for this stuff. Basically, it's quite toxic but to date nothing else has been found that's as effective. More than one fella has ended up in the hospital due to exposure to Iso's. Once you become sensitized, your painting days are over as any further exposure can induce an allergic reaction. So wear proper PPE.... This stuff can kill ya.

Follow the rules and 2k paint is the good stuff that will shine and last.

 

[Abscraperguy]

Are we gonna get into the old isocyanate discussio? There is a lot of fear mongering when it comes to Isocyanate. But its not toxic its just that over exposure can cause an allergic reaction. The following statement is from wikipedia and it says it precisely "Isocyanates are potentially dangerous irritants to the eyes and respiratory tract, despite their relatively low acute toxicities." The reason for Isocyanate in paint is as a curing agent. Isocyanate reacts with moisture so any paint exposed to air is cured by the humidity in the air. Want to speed up curing just up humidity. Paints like Endura EX-2C and Imron are not harmful unless someone has a low tolerance for Isocyanate. Irritant yes but not harmful. Some people can spray forever and never get sensitized and others need only one time. Once a person is sensitized their life can be very difficult. For example most colognes and perfumes have a minute amount of Isocyanate and it can set off a reaction. Isocyanate is in more things than we might think.

Some of the most toxic paint is the cheap hardware store enamel etc. It has extremely high VOC. It's not irritable like some of the two components are but it's way higher in the stuff that cooks the brain like thinners etc.

 

[Abscraperguy]

I don't mean to argue with you Scraperguy, you obviously know more about paint than I do. I was told most "factory" paint is plain old alkyd, but this was by a person with a very narrow inside view of the industry.

I like the welder and 110 for charging the paint. Electrostatic is more like static electricity, think thousands or tens of thousands of volts, maybe use an electric fencer, or the starter off a TIG welder, or your microwave. Just kidding, don't TOUCH the insides of your microwave.

In the last couple years with it becoming hip to be "green" I've lost track what manufacturers are using. The big companies like Deere and Cat etc definitely don't use alkyd but among others there could be some. For a lot of smaller equipment manufacturers there's every part of the spectrum when it comes to paint quality. In western Canada Phillips (now Phillips PPG) is biggest the OEM paint supplier and they sell everything. There definitely are a lot of companies that are selling equipment and not paint jobs and they might be using alkyd.

 

[OldandWorn]

For someone who wants to put good paint through a spray bomb for some touchup there is a product for you. I forget the name but it is a glass jar with a screw on canister on top with the propellant. Fill it with what you want then when done you can clean it and use it again.

Preval....very handy product.

 

[ScottAR]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_Disaster