Practical Methods For Improving Efficiency And Safety Of Painting Operations

June 7-11, 2010
Boulder, Colorado

Overview

The only training class of its kind that provides in-depth technical details on spray booths, spray guns, specific coating processes and a variety of environmental and health issues.

Who Should Attend?

Environmental managers, paint facility engineers, supervisors, lead painters, and purchasers of painting equipment will find this class to be invaluable.

Topics to be Covered

Spray Booth Issues: Details regarding the design, specification, and operation of dry filter and water wash spray booths, what filters to select and when to change them, typical problems encountered in booths, how to maintain a spray booth, monitoring air velocity and turbulence in a spray booth, and a whole host of other useful topics will be discussed.

Spray Gun Issues: Participants will first learn the differences between HVLP, conventional air atomizing, airless and air-assisted airless guns, how they function, which comply with EPA regulations, how to select spray guns for particular applications, how to clean and maintain the spray guns and associated equipment, and how to set up the spray guns to achieve optimum transfer efficiency.  Some topics will be covered that have never been addressed in national coating seminars, including: as the mechanism of paint atomization, how to get sufficient compressed air to a spray gun, selecting the most appropriate regulators and fittings for air hoses, minimizing pressure differentials, and more.

Specific Coating Processes: Details of both powder and liquid coating systems will be discussed, including the basic chemical and physical properties of the coatings, application procedures, as well as proper mixing techniques.  Mechanical and chemical preparation of substrate and the associated effect on adhesion and coating properties will be covered.  Various quality control measurements and instruments will also be discussed as well as some common paint defects and procedures for touch-up repairs. 

Environmental Issues: Throughout the 4-day training program, the importance of health and safety will be emphasized along with techniques that can help reduce hazardous waste.  In addition, some OSHA’s new Chromium VI standard will be discussed and techniques for minimizing chromate emissions from painting operations will be provided.  Participants will be taught how to perform important environmental calculations such as calculating spray booth emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) to determine if a facility is in incompliance with local or state regulations.

Faculty Bios

Ron Joseph
Mr. Ron Joseph is a Senior Managing Engineer at Exponent and is based in Menlo Park, CA.  Mr. Joseph has over 30 years experience in the field of paints and coatings, with some experience of adhesives and printing inks.  His knowledge covers both liquid paints and powder coatings, and he has worked with solvent based and waterborne paints covering a wide range of resins, including alkyd, epoxy, polyurethane, acrylic, polyester, vinyl, melamines, TGIC, hybrids, and nylon.  Painting processes are Mr. Joseph’s primary focus, and the first step regards chemical surface pretreatment of the substrate.  He helps clients solve problems in the fields of phosphating, chromate and non-chromate conversion coatings, and rinsing sealers that are free of hexavalent chromium.  With regard to mechanical surface preparation, Mr. Joseph consults on abrasive blasting using steel shot, garnet, aluminum oxide, carbon dioxide and plastic media blasting (PMB).  Paint application processes for which Mr. Joseph consults include spraying with conventional air atomizing, HVLP, airless, air-assisted airless, manual and automatic electrostatic paint sprayers.  He has worked with clients who use electrostatic rotary atomizers (such as the electrostatic bells used by automotive assembly plants) and high-speed disks.  Mr. Joseph performs spray booth audits to confirm compliance with NFPA-33, OSHA 1910.107 and other related sections, and the California Uniform Fire Code Article 45.  He conducts air velocity tests and measures air turbulence, and provides consulting advice on spray booth fans, motors, variable frequency drives (VFD), filters, regulators, equipment cleaning washers, and more.  He consults on a wide range of spray room designs; cross (side) draft, semi-downdraft, and downdraft.  Most of the work that he performs concerns paint defects that occur either during the painting process or after exposure to the environment, and he also consults on appearance defects, such as orange peel, crazing, cratering, blushing, and Bénard Cells.

Eric Guyer, Ph.D., P.E.
Dr. Eric P. Guyer is a Senior Managing Engineer at Exponent and is based in Menlo Park, CA.  His areas of expertise include materials science, paints and protective coatings, and the fracture mechanics and fatigue of bulk materials as well as thin-films.  Dr. Guyer has specific experience in failure analysis investigations of semiconductor materials and devices used for microelectronic, biomedical, or optical system applications including those in which the materials or devices are subjected to harsh environmental conditions (e.g. chemical mechanical planarization (CMP), or the human body).  He is also an expert in the area of mechanical testing of films and protective coatings (e.g. interfacial adhesion, cohesion, fatigue, subcritical crack growth / stress corrosion cracking) as well as materials characterization techniques used for complex thin-film device structures.   Dr. Guyer conducts failure analysis investigations and engineering evaluations of various paint and protective coating systems applied to a wide variety of steel, aluminum, plastic, brick and stucco structures such as railings, windows, fences, buildings as well as consumer products such as remote controls.  He has experience with powder coatings as well as solvent and waterborne liquid paints.

Richard Thelen, P.E.
Richard Thelen, P.E. is Vice President of Aviation and Military Sales of Global Finishing Solutions. Global Finishing Solutions is a manufacturer of paint spray booths and ovens for Industrial, Aviation and Auto Refinishing markets. He has over forty years of engineering experience. Mr. Thelen writes articles from time to time for various trade publications. He is active in most trade organizations, such as NBAA.

For more information, contact Ron Joseph at 650-688-7024 or via email.