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I need some guidance in finding a booth to strip the paint off our hooks as opposed to using the conventional burn-off oven.
To save the labor and time of manually taking hooks off and baking them in an oven I was wondering if there is some kind of booth that can be incorporated into the powder paint system so that the hooks can come out clean?.
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You seem to have chosen how you are going to remove the paint off your hooks, without really thinking about alternatives. Here are some potential avenues of investigation which may yeild better results.
I come accross this problem a few times in various paint process. So I'll talk in general. One process I've seen used the classic chain conveyor system which dips the product into a paint bath.
Basically the hooks get backed with the paint on and get a layer upon layer of paint, until they are not useable. Or alternatively using the (robotic) spray system again with the overhead conveyor.
No doubt you've seen the various process like water jet blast, burning, acid/solvent dips and sand blasting options.
Each of which is time consuming and expensive. All based on paint being on the hooks.
However I've seen some real inovative processes that take up a little more space, cost a little more at first but a cheaper, more reliable and cost effective in the long run.
The first is to paint and dry the part in two steps using a UV or IR curing paint for the first step. So the hook runs through a slight dip process upside down, gets cured, then gets inverted and the rest of the part gets painted in the dip.
The second method is to make the hook into the part and is painted first. Then is used to dip and paint the entire part.
The nice thing about these two method's is that yov've got little or no cleaning to do, no contamination from hook to hook and less damage of paint to parts.
If spray painting is involved thats can be a little trickier, but the principle is the same.
1. Paint the critical holding regions first,
2. Get those regions dried first quickly using UV or IR curing.
2. Transfer the part to another hook or rest for final painting and drying.
I'm sure when you do the sum's you'll find that cleaning hooks etc is far more expensive than the cost of a little drying first and then some material handling.
So basically what Im saying is, try to keep the hooks clean in the first place and avoid getting the dirty one's cured in the oven if you possible can.
Another alternative is to use disposable hooks, or hook material that can be sacrificed that is attached to the part. So a process like cutting can be used at the end of the paint line to remove the hook.
When you start to think about it, painting is an after thought for designers, nothing more than a footnote on a drawing, something the shop floor worries about.
I enjoyed helping you with your interesting question, and hopefully given you some ideas you can use, good luck,
Joewski,
Melbourne, Australia
