Never done it? Want to start? 

If your company is manufacturing semi-finished products in wood or derivatives of wood, and outsourcing the finishing process, but wants to start coating those panels in-house, you may need a simple spray-coating solution, which you can integrate into your production line. 

Consider the following: 
➀ Quantity - how many pieces per hour/day/shift will you need to process? 
➁ Size - minimum, maximum and average size of the pieces. 
➂ Quality - what expectations do you have? It will usually depend on the type of product you are coating. 
➃ Substrate – what is the piece made of and what kind of lacquer will you be applying? 

(Cycle on spraying machine one arm – paper belt)

▹ Substrate: solid wooden panel

▹ Lacquer: catalysed acrylic primer and finishing coat

The phases of the cycle:

➀ Rough sanding
➁ Coating application: transparent acrylic primer (80-100 g/sqm)
➂ Air drying time 1 hour; in a hot room or vertical oven 35°C for 30 min.
➃ Manual sanding for the edges and automatic sanding for the flat surface
➄ Coating application: transparent acrylic finish (80-100 g/sqm)
➅ Air drying 1.5h - 2h; in a hot room or vertical oven for 60 min.

What's the purpose of sanding the rough piece?

Machine start-up is generally preceded by preparation of the substrate. This consists of sanding the rough piece, a process that can be done manually or by machine. Pre-sanding of rough pieces is performed in almost all coating cycles, on both wooden and non-wooden materials (e.g. fibre cement and some plastics), and its purpose depends on the specific substrate.
In the case of wooden materials, sanding is designed to smooth and remove wood fibres that have been lifted by damp. On non-wooden materials, it is generally designed to aid adhesion of the first coating layer.
Once the machine start-up procedures and relative pre-wash cycles have been completed, the nozzles are mounted on the spray guns. These are selected according to:
- the type of coating product (water/solvent-based)
- the g/m2 of product to be deposited on the product
- line speed in m/min

What's the best configuration for coating 80% of products?

For 80% of products (maximum thickness 35 mm) the ideal coating configuration is to set the two angles of each gun at 45° and set the height at 160 mm (as measured from nozzle tip to piece surface).

How do I prepare the coating?

Coatings are prepared in the proportions normally shown on the packaging or according to personal experience. As a rule, each customer has a customised blend.
The coating is loaded by running the pump, inserting the dip tube in the pre-readied coating tin and performing all the tasks needed to ensure the product reaches the spray guns and the machine is ready for production.

The purpose of the first sample: checking the weight.

The first sample, normally the weight verification one, is now fed through in order to calculate the amount of coating needed per square metre. Pressure is then adjusted as desired.

At this point the operator can start coating the doors.

Keyword: cleaning Whatever the coating cycle, even the simplest, operators must take meticulous care of the machine. They must clean the spray guns, avoid rejects caused by accidental dust falls and, the following day, thoroughly clean the nozzles, pump, circuit and product or suction filters. 

What does "end of shift cleaning" mean? And how much time does it take?
End of shift cleaning can be completed in 15 minutes and involves the following:

1. Flushing of the multi-gun circuit
2. Nozzle removal and subsequent manual cleaning
3. Cleaning of the spray gun arm with solvent and brush
4. Dusting of internal booth walls

▷ Key word: quality. ◁

For each coating cycle, even the simplest, the machine and the operator determine the outcome. The machine must deliver in terms of performance, speed and coating uniformity, and the operator needs to keep it efficient, especially as regards the guns and nozzles (improves application quality), cleanliness, filters and air recirculation (ensures it stays dust-free).

This procedure considerably reduces end-of-shift cleaning times and significantly increases Transfer Efficiency, which means less coating consumption.

Today, we focus on spraying machine paint recovery and cleaning system.

Less detergent means lower operating costs, it safeguards your equipment and ensures a healthier environment.

Working with a sprayer or a robot with a belt that allows paint recovery means cleaning the belt regularly to remove any trace of the applied product. If your spray cleaning system is conventional, you will not only throw away a lot of paint, but you will also use a significant amount of detergent. Conventional systems also lead to rapid belt deterioration, either through the abrasion from belt cleaner blades or aggressive solvents. You will benefit from:

• increased paint recovery
• detergent consumption which drops to around 50 litres per shift
• fewer production stoppages to replace belts
• minimal end-of-session cleaning times
• enhanced production efficiency

Our simplified patented system allows you to reduce machine recovery times and detergent costs, even when changing colour.

Read the White Paper to learn more about this system.

If you are evaluating a spray-coating line for wooden panels, raised or flat, maybe for furniture elements, stairs, noise barriers or several other finished products with similar characteristics, we at Cefla Finishing have an integrated solution.

This system enables a high degree of flexibility to handle varying production needs. It is comprised of different machines for brushing/cleaning, spraying, curing and drying and is specially conceived to offer maximum productivity, requiring more or less 200 sqm of floorspace.

Go here for more general information on our range of spray coating solutions

One look at a skirting board and the finishing process it undergoes does not immediately come to mind, yet there is a lot to consider when defining an integrated finishing line for this product. One of the many possible solutions serves simply as an example. Each customer we have dealt with has a slightly different objective, so we like to evaluate each case separately. Standard solutions never seem to give more than standard satisfaction, whereas we at Cefla Finishing want to be sure we exceed the customer’s expectations, so we conceive the solution carefully, adapting a feature to solve a problem or adding a function to deliver a better result.

Starting with a brushing machine, we would then move on through a linear spraying machine. The first coat will probably be UV polyacrylic and Performa will apply it at 100 g/sqm. A seven-minute flash off in a Cross oven will then be needed, followed by a UV curing stage. The top side of the profiles will then be sanded on the brushing machine, a topcoat will be applied on the Performa and the flash off repeated for 7 minutes in the Cross oven. Running at speeds between 3000 and nearly 5000 pieces/shift, this is just one approach to finishing veneered skirting boards.

Contact us and discuss your needs with a finishing expert!

Objective: efficiency and sustainability.
When it comes to coating, there is a crucial point beyond all else, that of lacquer consumption.

Above all, how can overspray be reduced to a minimum in favour of improved transfer efficiency?

The Airsphere air diffusion plenum (a Cefla Finishing patent) is already a huge step in the right direction.

It acts as a way of controlling the air flow inside the machine, thus ensuring maximum spraying quality, uniform lacquer distribution and greater transfer efficiency.

➜ What other precautions are needed with regards to the machine?

✓ Choose the section of the gun nozzles correctly, according to the paint and in view of the desired application outcome: better to choose a larger section, so as to reduce the pump’s operating pressure
✓ Keep the guns’ atomisation air to a minimum
✓ During the "end of ventilation" phase, act on the Air "plenum and exhaust" parameters bringing them down to the minimum possible values
✓ From the machine display, set the spraying area to a minimum
✓ Position the guns as close as possible to the piece being coated
✓ Use spray in “all” instead of “backspray”.

Go here for more general information on our range of spray coating solutions.