"Once you make it sprayable, it will be good for four days if you keep it in a plastic can, not a metal can," said Cashon, manager of the Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes training center in Reno, as he mixed some of the company's soon-to-be-released AWX waterborne basecoat. "And be sure to filter it with a paper filter or a filter in the gun cup."
Cashon said the students, from four West Coast states, were not at the training center for waterborne training but for a 2 1/2-day Sherwin-Williams painter certification training. But he included the brief demo of AWX in part to allay fears that he said he hears in the industry about waterborne-paint technology.
"There is a learning curve that painters will have to go through with waterborne, but it's a quick curve," Cashon said. "It sprays like solvent. It dries faster than solvent. It lays down flatter than solvent. It blends easier than solvent. It doesn't take a lot for someone to quickly understand how water works."
Cashon will soon have plenty of opportunity to help introduce painters to waterborne paint technology. California's South Coast Air Quality Management District in the Los Angeles area will implement air quality regulations that will require the use of waterborne basecoats as of July 2008, and more California air quality districts will have similar rules go into effect in 2009.
Cashon said AWX training sessions will begin at the Reno training facility during the second quarter of this year, as Sherwin-Williams, which introduced AWX at NACE in November, begins converting California shops to the new product over the next several months.
About 1,000 people, primarily working painters, attend training every year at the Reno facility, one of five such training centers Sherwin-Williams operates around the country, Cashon said. He said he and his fellow Reno-based Sherwin-Williams instructor Clint Baker also conduct some training in the field, but the unique combination of classroom and hands-on training areas make the 12,000-square-foot Reno facility an effective place to train the industry about new refinish products and techniques."When people come in and I'm walking them through something and I can see that light bulb come on for them, that's such a good feeling," Cashon said. "I know I've just made their lives easier."
Baker said the company has invested in many of the same upgrades to the 20-year-old training facility that shops may need to successfully convert to waterborne-paint technology. He pointed to the recently replaced air filtration system installed last year to ensure a supply of clean, dry, compressed air in the booth.
"When we went to the low-VOC, high-solid refinish products, that required having good, clean, dry air with no oil," Baker said. "But waterborne is even that much more finicky in terms of eliminating moisture in the compressed air."
Movement of air within the booth is also crucial to drying of waterborne-paint products, Baker said. The training center's 20-year-old DeVilbiss downdraft booth has been retrofitted with Garmat USA's "Accele-Cure" system, which places three ceiling fans at the top of the booth to force more heated air down onto the vehicle.
"It does make the waterborne basecoat dry about twice as fast as it would otherwise," Baker said. "You can take 6 to 8 minutes down to 3 to 4."
Another type of booth retrofit system for waterborne, such as Junair's "QAD" system, uses sets of air nozzles mounted on the sides or corners of the booth to push the flow of air coming down against the vehicle and even into "shaded" areas, such as door handle recesses, Cashon said. During his demo of AWX, he used one of the center's several brands of similar but portable drying-jet systems that allow the painter to direct air movement onto the painted surface.
Baker pointed to several changes that waterborne products will require in the mixing room: Plastic cans and cups must be used rather than metal. Waterborne paint inventory, which has a shelf life of about two years, must be stored on a new bench that has stainless steel agitators. A different type of gun cleaner must be used, and the waterborne waste stream must be kept separate–in plastic drums–from any solvent-based waste stream.
Cashon said the spray guns used for waterborne paint are not dramatically different from those used for solvent-based products, but the same gun should not used for both to prevent possible solvent contamination of the waterborne product.
Although spraying technique will remain unchanged, the "look and feel" of the waterborne product will require some getting used to for painters, Cashon said.
"It can look a little ugly as it sprays out, but as it dehydrates, it flattens out flat as glass," he said.
Cashon said Sherwin-Williams has had great success with the product in Europe for several years, adding that he believes that those shops that make a reasonable investment in equipment and training will be pleased with the color match, quality, and productivity of waterborne-paint technology.
"Waterborne is definitely the future of refinish," Cashon said. "It's going to be a good change because a lot of problems for shops have been solvent-related. This is going to be a faster system. There's going to be more productivity. And it's my belief that once California is started with it, within two or three years much of the rest of the country will be using it."The Sherwin-Williams' Reno facility also offers training for Martin Senour refinish products. For a schedule of the training center's classes, call 775-829-1830.
