Water base paint is popular choice for coating industry, especially for automotive area where eco friendly is deeply concerned. From marketing report, over half traditional paint production are looking for water base solutions and doing A/B tests over different objects and various working environments. However, water base paint is a big difference to solvent solution for it’s chemical structure, and it also has very different requirements to it’s application system. Following we’re going to point out few crucial parts we need pay attention to when configuring a water base paint spraying system.
Spray booth
A very basic device for any paint application, but water base paint have different requirements to it. The initial point is the booth material choice which has to be stainless steel (SUS304 suggested) to avoid rust or corrosion. That includes the water tank, wall plate and any water curtain inside. Beside this very basic start, we also need to have specific model for water pump and exhaust blower. Traditional water pump is not suitable for booth construction, the paint will simply break the sealer and turbo then result in leakage or blockage of the piping. Blower should be specially considered as well for same reason.
Although the construction is perfect, we should also pay attention to our daily operation. Unlike solvent paint where we can add specific chemical to float up waste paint for easy cleaning, water base paint will sink to tank directly and can’t be floated. If we don’t take out the mud like solid wastes, the water cycling will be blocked. Thus, we must set a good cleaning schedule.
Paint pump
Water base paint has special requirement to it’s pump device for its high viscocity properties. If we mix with extra more water for less viscocity, the paint will flow on product face which will increase the bad rate quickly. Thus, regular paint pump is not suitable for water base paint application. Technically we choose 3:1 water base pneumatic pump or gear pump for stable liquid supply.
The difference between a water base paint pump and solvent paint pump is it’s production material and pumping capacity. Water base paint is constructed by stainless steel with extra strong pressure while solvent pump is normally made by aluminum. Water base paint pump can be used for solvent paint application.
Spray gun
A crucial part which determines the spraying quality directly. We must use water base spray gun instead any high end model for solvent paint. Water is some kind wearing material and it will rust on any non-stainless materials. Thus the water base spray gun is 100% stainless steel production, spray nozzle and needles are stainless steel 316 type for guaranteed performance.
Dryer oven
Construction of dryer oven is a bit different than traditional model. Due to water evaporation inside oven, the oven chamber and heater might be broken for long time working. So the oven inside wall has to be stainless steel with stainless steel heater. We suggest centralized burner with air pipe for better performance. By this way, the heat energy is cycling inside air pipe system and there’s no direct contact between the heater and water. Either safety or life cycle can be greatly improved.
