Very large paint dipping tank

[s410man]

Simple question really how good a finish can you get on painted items by dipping them in a tank?



Mostly agricultural type stuff so a super smooth finish isn't needed but then again i don't want it to be a horrible finish full of runs



I'm guessing thin the paint down a fair bit first



At the moment we're painting everything by hand with a roller but its quite time consuming!



Mostly small box section/mesh structures so not really suitable for spraying as there'd be so much overspray



I've seen it done using paraffin to thin the paint but not a very good finish and takes days to dry!



The plan is to build a very large tank if its possible circa 3000x1100x1100



Then I'll just need a mortgage to fill it with paint and obviously a sealing lid for when not in use



Also thought about some sort of vibrator to shake excess paint off? Thinking more wacker plate rather than rabbit type.....



As ever any advice/ideas welcome

 

[gaz1]

not for that a thin 4" tank would do that

dip turn sideways dip turn again

it would be the same if you was dipping car doors size of tank would be 8" width or 10 by using dip and spin

but with each system you would loose a skim of paint

however if you changed your design to all flat panels and the sides slot into it then a gap of 4-5" and just dipped in from above would do

 

[Parm]

The only dip tanks I’ve ever seen do it in a single pass. The tanks are large and deep and not thin and shallow

For any sort of quality finish you will also need decent surface preparation

Think e coat dip systems used by all the motor manufactures. Not cheap

 

[julianf]

Have you compared your costing to just getting them hit dip galvanised?

Or are they indoor items that need painting for cosmetic reasons?

 

[s410man]

The only dip tanks I’ve ever seen do it in a single pass. The tanks are large and deep and not thin and shallow

For any sort of quality finish you will also need decent surface preparation

Think e coat dip systems used by all the motor manufactures. Not cheap

They use positive and negative charges to get the paint nice and even that's way above the level of finish I'm trying to get but the same basic idea as such!

Have you compared your costing to just getting them hit dip galvanised?

Or are they indoor items that need painting for cosmetic reasons?

Yes a lot of our stuff is galvanised but the price of that is rising all the time at the moment plus transport costs and the time it takes!

 

[ajlelectronics]

If they are suitable for rolling then spraying with LVLP would work well, with minimal overspray, such as you would get from an aerosol.

 

[highseas]

I know a place that dips garden gates and deceptive panels they just thin it well and dip a couple times, i make a lot of the same stuff you do, feeder barriers ect and I just spray red oxide, paints cheap metals dear

 

[bricol]

We've using some new paint system at work that charges the components, thus minimising over spray and paint waste. Afraid I've no idea what it is though.

As for dipping - yes, but not for that size - we used to manufacture something called a "dip-spin". Chuck your small components into a basket, slide basket into machine, press the go button. Basket was picked up, a drum half full of paint lifted up around it, the basket dunked in it, rotated in it, back and forth. Drum dropped, basket spun to remove excess - repeat as required.

All done on pneumatic logic, air motors, actuators, brakes etc to minimise spark risks with the paint - problem was, there was the occasional trapped signal . . . spinning basket dropped at speed into the drum of paint . . .

 

[8ob]

An engineering company I worked at when I was a nipper had a paint dip for all the railings and gates they made. That was dip and drip dry, never really seemed to dry right through, there were always excesses of paint in nooks and crannies that would skin over.

Bob

 

[hotponyshoes]

I had a job making cattle feeders and the like when I was younger.

I'd imagine the most effective way to cover them properly in paint is a person with a brush on £15 an hour...

 

[James1979]

An engineering company I worked at when I was a nipper had a paint dip for all the railings and gates they made. That was dip and drip dry, never really seemed to dry right through, there were always excesses of paint in nooks and crannies that would skin over.

Bob

I make grappling hooks for a fisherman supply place.

“Functional not pretty” was the brief. They usually get lost before they rust.

I dip them in neat International paint. Then hang them to dry. Then repeat as required.

Coverage isn’t even. You get drips and runs.

They are functional not pretty for sure. But made to a price and disposable.

If I was painting something that was important I think I couldn’t justify the outlay in a paint setup good enough to make it look nice. Would be cheaper to pay a man to do it by hand I’d think?

 

[Easywelder]

I would think galvanising those sheep feeders would be just as cost effective and about 10 times more attractive to potential purchasers, I wouldn’t be buying anything to do with livestock if it wasn’t galvanised(said by an arable farmer!).

Edit I see you do some galv, I guess you offer paint or galv already.

 

[knighty]

I'd price up the 3000litres of paint needed to fill that tank first

if you're sick of painting see if you can get a youngun to come in on a saturday and paint them for you?

see how long it takes you to paint one, work out the pay to paint one, tell them you'll ay £x per each one painted, needs to be a good job but they can go home when they're finished.... a half decent/keen youngun will have them done in half the time you do them


oh the memories of being young/keen/flexible/full of energy :-o

 

[s410man]

I'd price up the 3000litres of paint needed to fill that tank first

if you're sick of painting see if you can get a youngun to come in on a saturday and paint them for you?

see how long it takes you to paint one, work out the pay to paint one, tell them you'll ay £x per each one painted, needs to be a good job but they can go home when they're finished.... a half decent/keen youngun will have them done in half the time you do them


oh the memories of being young/keen/flexible/full of energy :-o

I still like to think of myself as a youngun

I know it's going to thousands to fill the bath but labour saving is one of the drivers of this can't seem to find many younguns who want to spend all day painting!

Thought a fair bit about paying per piece rather than per hour but i can see quality dropping then people getting arsey when you say it needs to be done again after they've moved onto the next one and tallied up what they think they've already earnt

 

[tom2207]

a shed and a pot fed paint system would be my thoughts ,,, then your not limited on future projects either

 

[Sergei Slovenija]

A do-it-yourself powder paint heat chamber is a fairly budget solution. The spray guns themselves are inexpensive. Chinese work. The rest of the equipment can also be done. do-it-yourself (vessel with a bubbling layer of powder paint).

 

[willie.macleod]

I would think galvanising those sheep feeders would be just as cost effective and about 10 times more attractive to potential purchasers, I wouldn’t be buying anything to do with livestock if it wasn’t galvanised(said by an arable farmer!).

Edit I see you do some galv, I guess you offer paint or galv already.

I agree, any painted steelwork here will be rotted out in a few years as opposed to galv which will have a lifespan measured in decades.

 

[Gareth J]

If you spend 1000s on a tank of paint, can it be some kind of special paint that doesn't skin over? All my oil based tins get skin on eventually. Before getting into making a tank and buying paint, I'd want to be very sure I was going to be able to get decent life out of the paint first off

 

[hotponyshoes]

I'd be a bit worried about the value of the paint in a tank that size.
Sure, after the initial investment you only pay for what you use but I'd be a bit worried about looking after it.

Unless you can run it 24/7 I think the least you would need is an air tight lid and if you had enough space between the lid and the top of the paint, maybe a vacuum pump to stop the paint skinning over.
The other big issue would be contamination. I reckon you would either need something like a 2nd & 3rd tank to chemical dip and rinse the parts first or you would run the risk of the little bits of crud on them gradually contaminating the paint.
I suppose you could pump it out into some Ibc's, clean the tank and filter it back occasionally?

You've also got the issue of excess paint, you either need to hang (the vibration might help) the items over the tank until they stop dripping which will slow down the throughput, or, move them along a line to drip off somewhere else so you can dip the next one but you then need to get that dripping paint back into the tank somehow without wasting loads of it painting the bottom of the drip trays each time.

A more economic way would be to have a curtain of paint above a trough that you pass the part through (or move the curtain over the part)
This would either involve you rotating the part as it moves through or putting it through multiple times. You'll still have the issue of getting the drips back to the tank efficiently though.

If the majority of the items you are making are all the same then it might be possible to make up something like a square frame with a load of paint rollers (or brushes) mounted to it. You could pump the paint to the rollers via a network of hoses and, once they are saturated, push the items through. Then roll it onto a vee bottomed drip tray where you can dip into the vee with a brush to do the areas that get missed manually.

I think you would want a whole load of bits the same ready to paint at the same time to make it worthwhile though.

Powder coat would be ok if you could dunk the parts in an agitated tank but you'd need to prep the parts correctly plus you have the cost (both energy & time) of baking them.

Another option would be electrostatic wet spraying. Not exactly a budget option but it probably won't cost you any more to get set up than 3000l of paint would. Plus the kit will have a resale value!
Quicker and easier to apply than a brush and I expect the wastage will be quite a bit less than the unrecoverable drips from a dip system.

 

[premmington]

Dumb question?

Paint dipping tanks - do they not skin up?