style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%"> Visalia, Calif.--In high-tech circles, an "early adopter" is someone who embraces a new technology before most other people do.
Among collision repairers, that title could be applied to Cesare's Collision Repair & Towing, which this past winter became one of the first shops in the country to switch over to spraying waterborne basecoats.
"BASF approached us about a year ago and invited us to come down to their training center in Southern California to take a look at the product and see what we thought," said Pat Anaya, who manages Cesare's collision repair operation for company President Gabriel Jacques.
Anaya said he and several of the company's paint staff made the trip and were impressed with BASF's Glasurit 90 Line waterborne system.
"They shot it and liked it," he said of his paint staff. "It was real easy to use, and the coverage is a lot better. So what we have done is had both systems in here, the solvent-based Glasurit line and the 90 Line waterborne system, so we could work into using it over time. The guys liked it right away and said, 'If we can, let's go strictly 90.'"
By last month, Anaya said he was expecting his BASF rep to remove the shop's solvent-based Glasurit basecoats, making the shop's switchover complete--well ahead of the 2008 and 2009 deadlines for use of waterborne in many parts of California.
Cesare's had to make investments in equipment and facility that many shops will most likely need to do to convert to waterborne basecoats. New spray guns designed for waterborne paint--which can be contaminated if shot using the same guns used for solvent-based product--were needed. And a separate gun cleaner and hazardous-waste disposal set-up was needed along side those made for solvent-based paint products.
But the biggest change, Anaya said, was the addition of a Junair "QAD" system to Cesare's 12-year-old Garmat paint booth.
"Waterborne requires more air movement to dry," he said. "That's what the QAD system provides."
The Junair system, one of several "air-accelerator" options on the market, retrofits existing booths with sets of air nozzles mounted in the 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.
"That required about an $18,000 investment, so not a whole lot, and it's working well," Anaya said. "We're still averaging seven to eight cars a day through the booth, so we haven't dropped off at all. And as we tweak it a little more and really get some more experience, I think we could possibly do even more because the QAD system even speeds up the drying of the solvent-based clearcoats, too."
The shop also recently invested in a new Quincy compressor, Anaya said.
"That wasn't required to run the Junair or anything, but we needed to replace an older set-up," he said. "And we found we were able to go from two side-by-side compressors with 15 horsepower down to one 7.5-horsepower compressor that can run the booth and everything."
Mixing, color matching, and spraying waterborne are not radically different, Anaya said, although accurate measurements are required because of the concentrated nature of the pigments. He said it's too early to know for sure, but he has not initially seen much of a cost difference because although the cost per can may be higher, improved coverage seems to be reducing the amount sprayed.
Those are numbers Cesare's can track, thanks in part to its Mitchell shop management system and the number-crunching services the shop gets through BASF and the shop's jobber, FinishMaster, Anaya said. With 25 employees working in nearly 14,000 square feet of shop space (including a small shop about two blocks from the company's main location), he said such production management tools are a necessity.
The I-CAR Gold Class shop also contracts with Verifacts Automotive to have its trainers inspect in-process and completed vehicles and work with technicians on complying with OEM and other repair guidelines.
Anaya said he likewise tries to keep himself current with what's going on in the industry by participating in California Autobody Association monthly meetings.
The shop stays busy, he said, in part through its participation in some insurer direct repair programs but even more so because of its history and reputation in the community.
"We haven't had a need to do much advertising because the company has been here for 50 years," he said.
That has also insulated the shop from much if any decline in work, Anaya said, even though it was not among those chosen for State Farm's "Select Service" program last year.
"We kind of follow the motto of taking care of what we have," he said. "The customer is our first priority. If we take care of our customers and keep our CSI up, we're going to get repeat customers and word-of-mouth. It's worked out."
As smoothly as Cesare's transition to waterborne basecoats has gone, Anaya said he's glad the company didn't wait until it was right up against the deadline to make the change required under pending air quality requirements.
"I think you may see a lot of shops scrambling at the last minute to get set up," he said. "We were kind of hesitant at first. But everything has been smooth. It feels good knowing that if the air quality controls went into effect today, we're compliant. We're ready to go."
