Keeping your paint booth clean and protected — from the walls to the floors — has a significant impact on your ability to produce high-quality paint jobs, maximize productivity and keep your employees and investment safe. With the help of Global Finishing Solutions’ senior technical advisor, Jason Garfoot, we have identified nine products that can lead to clean, high-quality paint jobs while also keeping your shop(s), paint booth(s) and painter(s) safe.

1. Booth Shield^® Wall & Floor Coatings

Excess overspray accumulation on spray booth walls can become a fire hazard and is dangerous for your technicians, materials and equipment. Peelable booth protection, Booth Shield strippable coatings create a safer spraying environment by trapping overspray that collects on booth walls and floors. The coatings are easier to remove than traditional floor paper too — to peel Booth Shield off your surfaces, simply score the edges and easily remove and dispose of overspray accumulation.

2. PIG Grippy Mat Protective Floor Covering

A unique, adhesive floor covering for paint booths, the PIG Grippy Mat protects the booth floor, while also trapping overspray, dirt, dust and particles for better quality paint finishes and a safe, bright working environment. The PIG Grippy Mat is simple to install and peels up easily for quick change-outs, with an Installation Board or Roller. Overspray, dust and debris can be removed by sweeping or vacuuming the PIG Grippy Mat, saving the hassle of scraping or using chemicals to remove overspray from your floor.

3. DirtTrack Mats

Prevent contaminants from entering the booth with DirtTrack mats. Easily peeled and replaced, these adhesive mats are placed outside the booth to trap dirt and dust from painters’ shoes, vehicles’ tires and carts’ wheels before they enter the paint booth. Garfoot says, “It’s always good to protect the floor of your booth. Not just to keep your floor looking nice, but to keep your paint jobs clean.”

4. Quality Paint Booth Filters

Quality paint booth filters are designed and manufactured for durability and long-lasting performance. Low-quality spray booth filters, as well as poor booth maintenance, can create safety hazards and contribute to negative air pressure and contamination buildup. Poor quality filters will also plug faster, with intake filters disintegrating and ending up in your paint job.

Exhaust filters, on the other hand, help reduce particles in the paint booth exhaust stream and emissions of potentially hazardous materials into the air. Using poor quality exhaust filters can lead to poor airflow, paint runoff and potential damage to your air make-up unit and parts, and allow hazardous air emissions to escape into the environment. We suggest using high-quality exhaust paint booth filters, such as GFS Wave, which includes a three-dimensional wave pattern for maximum surface area and exceptional depth loading ability to capture and retain overspray within the media.

5. REVO Accelerated Curing Systems

REVO Accelerated Curing Systems’ short wave infrared (IR) technology quickly cures fillers and coatings from the inside out within minutes. The most advanced products in the REVO line, REVO Rapid and REVO Speed units include heat sensors to prevent the IR waves from burning the coatings or the panels. After it reaches full temperature, the sensors will shut off the unit until it cools enough to reach full temperature once again.

The lamps on the REVO Rapid and REVO Speed units reach full temperature in less than a second, and fans cool down the systems in seconds. The systems can be turned on only when needed and are safe to touch shortly after being turned off.

6. Proper Spray Gun

Selecting a proper spray gun is frequently overlooked, but is crucial to a quality paint job. Make sure your painters are using spray guns with the proper air pressure and tip size, which can be found in the technical data sheets from the paint company. It is also important to take into consideration if you’re spraying solvent- or water-based paints, as this will alter the type of spray gun you use for the paint job. Trusted brands such as SATA and Iwata provide quality paint guns.

7. High-Flow Air Fittings

On top of selecting the proper spray gun, proper air fittings for your spray gun play a meaningful role in the quality of your paint jobs. Standard airflow fittings can cause quality issues and perform improperly, so make sure your painters are selecting high-flow air fittings, as they provide a larger diameter that allows for less restriction and issues such as streaking or uneven spray patterns.

8. Filtration & Drying System

Having a quality filtration system for the supplied air that connects to your painter’s spray gun keeps air and other contaminants out of the paint job, improving paint finish quality. Fast dry times require a quality filtration system for superior paint jobs and finishes, since the drying system dries the air while spraying water-based paint. Trusted brands like Dan-am/SATA and Kaeser are well known for their high-quality filtration and drying systems.

9. Protective Attire for Your Painters

Protective clothing for your painters plays a simple but important role in both quality and safety. A paint suit should cover the painter’s entire body, from their hands to their feet. Not only does this keep dirt out of the paint job, it also protects the painter from exposure to harmful isocyanates, which are reactive chemicals used in coatings such as paints and varnishes. Once your exposure to isocyanates reaches a certain level, you can become sensitized and allergic to the paints and coatings being used, resulting in breathing problems, asthma, hives, rash and a long-term, potentially career-ending health hazard.

Along with the suit, Garfoot suggests only using nitrile gloves, as these will also protect against isocyanate sensitization. A full mask is required, preferably with a fresh air supply which also keeps the painter cooler. Booties are optional and can protect your shoes from overspray.