Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1277345
5 www.spirofl ow.com Making a color paint fi lm To make a color paint fi lm, the company fi rst makes a clear base (or binder). The clear base is made by adding several hundred pounds of a resin powder and smaller amounts of other ingredients into a 400-gallon capacity heated mixing vessel containing a liquid solvent. The company makes the clear base in standard quantity batch sizes. After completing the clear base, operators follow a standardized color formulation, manually weighing and adding various pigments and other components (alu- minas, micas, and other color-producing compounds) to the clear base. At this time, the operators make any necessary minor adjustments to color-match the paint to the specifi c color standard being produced. "Operators weigh out most of the ingredients by hand using fl oor scales located next to the mixing vessel or mobile scales that can be rolled up to the mixing vessel," says Mark Beard, Soliant staff product development en- gineer. "The operators then manually dump or pump the proper ingredient amounts into the mixing vessel." After completing the paint batch, operators roll-coat the paint onto a clear fi lm. This fi nished product is sent to other companies that apply the paint fi lm to automotive parts. Experiencing problems making the clear base The resin powder, which has particles about the size of sugar particles, is stored in fi ber drums. In the past, to add the resin to the mixing vessel, two operators fi rst manually moved a drum onto a fl oor scale located next to the mixing vessel and weighed the drum. The two operators then used hand scoops to add the resin to the mixing vessel. Since the resin is moisture-sensitive (hygroscop- ic), it has a tendency to form soft clumps over time. (The clumps are more abundant in resealed, partial- ly used drums.) "If the operators dropped a resin clump into the solvent, the solvent would wet the clump's outer surface and form a glob that was extremely diffi cult to dissolve," says Beard. "Or if the operators added the resin too quickly to the solvent, the resin would form lumps in the solvent that didn't dissolve easily. It's kind of like when you make gravy and add the fl our to the water — you get lumps if the fl our is lumpy or added too quickly." To prevent lumps from forming in the mixing vessel, the operators used their hand scoops to break up the resin clumps in the drum, then scooped out the resin and slowly poured it into the mixing vessel at a rate that allowed it to dissolve without clumping. Periodi- cally, the operators moved the drum back onto the fl oor scale to weigh the drum and determine how much resin they had used. This ensured that they added the proper resin amount to the mixing vessel. The clear base is made by adding several hundred pounds of a resin powder and smaller amounts of other ingredients into a 400-gallon capacity heated mixing vessel containing a liquid solvent.