Painting a factory

[nic]

Hi

Looking at painting the factory walls/floor at work.
It's a standard concrete box factory 8M high about floor area 250m2.
Yes that is a LOT of paint

Anyway I'm wondering if I should spray, super cheap have a special on those pressure cooker style paint pots
Or the good oll Roller.

I'm planning on getting a scissor lift in, to speed the job up.

My main concern is speed, then over spray, I can live with a little but don't want to paint everything white !!

Any ideas

Thanks

Nic

[echnidna]

I love sprayguns
But I'd use a roller on this job.

[Big Shed]

Hi

Looking at painting the factory walls/floor at work.
It's a standard concrete box factory 8M high about floor area 250m2.
Yes that is a LOT of paint

Anyway I'm wondering if I should spray, super cheap have a special on those pressure cooker style paint pots
Or the good oll Roller.

I'm planning on getting a scissor lift in, to speed the job up.

My main concern is speed, then over spray, I can live with a little but don't want to paint everything white !!

Any ideas

Thanks

Nic

Sounds like a job for airless spray gun. The pressure pot type gun will give you LOTS of overspray.

Having said all that I sprayed my 48x25x10 shed on the outside with a HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) gun (PorterCable) and it did a great job with very little overspray, didn't take me that long either.

If you are going to the expense of hiring a scissor lift, hire an airless as well. It will do the job very quickly. What you spend on hiring the airless gun you will more than recoup on the shorter hire of the scissor lift.

[OBBob]

Hi There ... The hired airless spayers are great but you need to do a little reading on the technique and getting the settings right to avoide the overspray.

I was putting a coat on my 90sqm of catherdral ceilings plus the walls below in about 1 hour (and that's working on scaffold up to 6m). They put on good thick coats, you just have to be careful of runs etc. ... but a little practice and you get the hang of it.

Rolling would give you a good workout!

[nic]

I use a HVLP gun at home for painting some of the wood projects, but after about an hour painting I get some strain on the wrist.
I'd be a bit worried I'm never going to last the 2 days of whatever it takes to paint the factory.
Can you be more sloppy with a airless gun than with a HVLP ?

Nic

[OBBob]

I guess the thing to remember is that with the airless gun you are only lifting the gun ... the tin of paint stays on the ground. Further to that point you need to make sure that the line on the airless gun is long enough for factory height walls.

You would be forever refilling with an HVLP I would have though? But as I said, you can put on a lot of paint with an airless. I went through 3 of the large tins in a weekend ... 15L or 20L each I think?

I think your only choice is between hiring an airless or rolling ... and that will come down to your preferences on which muscles you want to make sore!!

[NCArcher]

I don't know much about it (i hate painting) but would the powered/pressurised roller that hooks up to the 20L pot be an option?

[Barry_White]

I have a friend who is a professional painter and the only way to go would be with an airless sprayer. As OBBob says all you are lifting is the hand gun.

As far as the length of hose is concerned is if you are using a scissor lift you could have the unit and the drum of paint sitting on the the platform of the scissor lift and all you would need is an electrical lead long enough to power the airless pump.

You will accomplish this quicker than with a roller.

Over spray is less of a problem with airless guns than with normal guns and any over spay with an airless gun with water based paint turns to dust before it hits the floor and that is with a 2.400 high ceiling. You then just sweep up the dust when finished.

[arose62]

Ever watched Mr Bean??

He had a really useful technique for painting a room extremely rapidly.
It involved putting explosive into the paint tin...

[durwood]

Airless is the best way to go.

Not only will you have minimum overspray but you will get excellent adhesion to the concrete as it is forced into the surface where as rollers will hit the high spots and any holes and faults will need extra attention like dabbing with a brush etc.

If you use even HVLP you will get overspray and nil penetration in faults in the surface as air bouncing back prevents the paint getting in.

Airless works even better on bricks. Airless systems which have a pump which replaces the lid on a 20 lt drum of paint would work great. You just open the tin clamp the pump on the top, turn it on and go for it. When you are finished you can use the empty drum with water in it to flush out the system.

A workshop I worked in had dark bricks which we had painted with a light grey. It was over 4 times larger than your area and the boss was not happy when he realised that the job was done in a few hours when all his quotes said they needed two days plus. The guy came in on the weekend and had it done the first day by lunch time and that was two coats.

Big job, hire a top of the line system and get it done properly and fast.