New Robotic Spray System Installed For The UK Automotive Industry

May 2, 2016/in Automotive

New robotic spray coating line being put through its paces at a UK automotive brake disc manufacturer. Able to spray both water based and solvent coatings, the 6 axis ATEX-rated robot, sprays an accurate film weight onto rotating automotive brake discs.

Prior to spraying and after manual loading, pre-heating is carried out through a custom infra-red tunnel to ensure all discs are at the same temperature for spraying.

Each disc is rotated automatically in front of the Wagner spray system before moving into a dedicated flash-off area at 60c.

Once the flash-off process has happened, the discs go into a hot air curing oven at 190c.

After curing, the product is force cooled and offloaded by hand.

Pre-heat, spray, flash-off, bake and cool in a single system!

For more information on automotive finishing systems, email sales@schuberts.co.uk

Services and Trade Interiors and Contracting, Oman, High Gloss Systems Installed

April 29, 2016/in Case Studies, Glass, News, Plastic, Products, Wood

A new Schuberts double installation has just been commissioned in Muscat, Oman.

This installation was designed for two separate finishing systems within the manufacturing site in Ruwi, Muscat.

Phase 1 featured ATEX rated open spray booths and custom ducting to atmosphere. These booths were fitted with Andreae high efficiency double layer filters. These open booths are used for primers, base coats, stains and satin finishes on GRP, glass, wood and plastic.

Phase 2 was a large complete water-wash stainless steel installation for solvent based gloss product onto wood, GRP and glass substrates.

The 6000mm x 7000mm spray enclosure has a double filtration system for the air into the spray zone. Firstly, air from outside the factory was filtered by an existing air handling system and then the air undergoes a further cleaning through capture and hold air input filters on top of the Schubert spray enclosure.

The paints and lacquers can be applied by up to 3 sprayers working on rotating tables, against a full water-wash extraction system. A cascade of water takes away the overspray with recirculated water flow into a base hopper tank for overspray capture. This system has a high capacity recirculated water flow with fresh water top-up system, allowing increased flow to the scrubber nozzles, whilst minimising the volume of water inside the water wash spray booth.

Lighting is provided by roof and wall 1000 lux blue/white flicker free sky-white lighting systems. This is the closest to natural light and perfect for the spray application of clear coats and pigmented paints onto a variety of substrates, including solid wood, veneers and glass.

All intermediate storage of paint tins is inside a special paint mix room, adjoining the spray enclosure. This features a bunded floor, ATEX lighting, ATEX heating and permanent extraction to atmosphere via an ATEX rated fan set and ducting. Also this paint kitchen features explosion relief panels and twin personnel doors for emergency escape routes.

Once sprayed inside the spray shop enclosure, the wet racks of product are transferred into a 12,000mm x 3000mm flash-off zone. This area is to allow the solvent vapours to ‘flash’ prior to being force cured in the Schubox drying system. The flash-off zone is fitted with filtered air input to ensure a clean zone. There are low level, full-length, extraction chambers, ATEX fans and ducting into the Schubox for oxidisation.

After flash-off (5 mins for water based, 10 mins for acid catalysed and 40 mins for high gloss PU), the products are placed inside the Schubox for drying and curing. The Schubox is a long-wave, gas catalytic infra red drying system, designed to run at low temperatures and cure wet coatings very quickly. This Schubox in Oman, runs at 40c and cures solvent polyurethanes in 45 minutes (compared to 2 days in the past!). The Schubox has filtered air input, air movement, full stainless steel construction and custom made infeed and outfeed doors.

For more information on high gloss finishing systems for wood and glass, spray booths, rapid drying and all Schubert systems, email sales@schuberts.co.uk

Schuberts Install New Automatic Panel Spray Machine, Clean Room and Schubox

November 6, 2015/in News, Products, Wood

Schuberts have recently installed and commissioned a new panel spray machine, heavy duty stacking machine and clean room at one of the UK’s leading producers of specialist door coatings. This is a totally unique and special installation, meaning anything from a kitchen door front, mouldings and up to full size 130kg doors can be processed.

The line incorporates a wide 1300mm automatic spray machine, capable of running at 5m/min. This machine features twin oscillating arms, fitted with 3 separate paint circuits and up to 8 guns. This machine is able to spray primers, base coats and top coats in both water based AND solvent based finishes.

The unique recovery system allows the paint overspray to be reclaimed, filtered and blended back into virgin paint product where possible.

The LIFT system means that up to 130kg doors can be unloaded wet from the spray line and then placed automatically into heavy duty drying trolleys. Each product has its length and width measured automatically before being loaded into its own individual space in the trolley. Once full, the operators move the trolley within the clean room.

The clean room is designed as a flash-off zone and allows the wet coating, specifically high gloss, to be in a clean area before being dried. The flash-off zone here is large enough to accommodate up to 8 full trolleys. The air flow is filtered using capture and hold air input filters and the extracted air goes to atmosphere.

For more information on the range of automatic spray machines for panels, doors and components, email sales@schuberts.co.uk

High Gloss Problems Cured!

August 10, 2015/in Case Studies, News, Products, Wood

One of the UK’s most well known and high quality manufacturers of high gloss and flat matt doors has just taken delivery of a new installation from Schuberts connected directly to a Giardina spray machine.

Schuberts installed a new flash-off zone and gas catalytic IR drying zone to service the finishing needs of both hand sprayed products as well as wet panels coming from a fully automatic Giardina spray machine.

The customer sprays solvent based high gloss PU as well as solvent and waterbased matt paints and lacquers. With the Giardina spray machine able to run at and above 6m/min, the bottleneck was always the flash-off and curing time, not to mention issues with contamination and variation in finishing quality when the wet product was left in the open factory environment. The new Schubert installation addresses each of those issues in three key ways.

A dedicated flash-off room was designed and built around the outfeed conveyor of the Giardina automatic reciprocating spray machine, where wet product is loaded onto drying racks. The flash-off is fitted with a pressurised heated air balance system via a biomass boiler, whereby the 18c input air is matched to the air extracted. All heated incoming air is filtered to remove any particulate and the extract air is fed into the modified Schubox catalytic infra red drying system. The permanent extraction system is at low level to remove the VOC’s.

Once flash-off has happened, the racks are transferred into the dedicated custom Schubox drying zone.

This area is fitted out with 5 gas catalytic heater panels, providing heat, long wave infra red and air movement at a gentle 35-40c. A dedicated control panel serves the whole of the new installation from a central point from an easy to use touch-screen HMI.

Drying times are slashed, productivity is up, reworks are down and Schuberts have another satisfied customer!

Complete Manual Schubert and Automatic Finishing System Installed at AJB Group

July 30, 2015/in Case Studies, Products

AJB Group have taken delivery of a new turn-key Schubert finishing installation for both the manual and automatic application of their production.

Having just moved into a new 36,000 ft² factory, AJB took the decision to invest in new technology for finishing their wide range of high quality Internal Joinery, External Doorsets, Windows, Composite Doors and Mouldings.

The first part of the install was a new Schubert spray booth enclosure, complete with filtered air input, 1000 lux lighting and Andreae High Efficiency filters. An overhead conveyor track was installed where windows and doorsets can be hung and painted on both sides before moving into the flash-off and Schubox

A separate adjoining paint mix room was added, with a bunded floor, explosion relief panels, ATEX heating system, permanent independent extraction to atmosphere.

The spray shop features manual entrance doors as well as product slots in the side of the structure. Bright white lighting gives great colour rendition. Air input is through capture and hold tack filters, meaning the pressurised spray room is free from dust and contamination. The extract filters are Andreae HE two stage filters. Both the input and extract fans are inverter driven through a PLC run control system and air pressure differential sensors. This means that the spray room remains pressurised right up until the extract filters are clogged with overspray.

The spray shop was connected to a flash-off section, again with lighting and extraction into the Schubox. The flash-off allows the product to flow and settle after spraying. If the paint hasn’t settled and vented, the rapid drying in the gas catalytic infra red Schubox will encourage a too fast process and solvent entrapment can occur, producing tiny bubbles in the dried lacquer. The flash-off is also supplied with clean air through roof filtration to ensure the wet product is not coated in airborne contamination.

The Schubox gas catalytic infra red drying system features bi-fold double doors on the infeed and outfeed. Each coated piece is stacked in the flash-off zone and then introduced into the Schubox catalytic IR curing system for a maximum of 30 minutes at 35°C. The wet lacquer is fully cured with long wave IR and at a temperature that does not affect the substrate in any way. After 30 minutes, the pieces are removed from the Schubox and are taken straight to fitting up and then despatch.

To compliment the manual spray system, Schuberts have also installed an automatic profile spraying line. Lineal lengths are handfed onto the line at ~30m/min, sanded and then sprayed with either solvent or waterbased paints. The profile line is controlled from a central touchscreen PLC where run speeds and gun settings can be altered.
Once sprayed, the pieces are racked up on finger trolleys and taken to the Schubox for rapid drying, before being loaded onto the line again for the next coat.

Mandeep Binji, Operations Director at AJB Group, says “The new Schuberts installation is fabulous, allowing us to achieve a faultless finish time and time again. The pressure sensors on the spray booth are fantastic which tells the operators its time to change the filters and the pressurised booth means we can finally appreciate the benefits of spraying in a controlled pressured spray environment.”

For more information on the range of products from AJB Group, please see www.ajb-group.co.uk
To see how Schuberts can design and install a custom finishing system for your company, call +44 (0) 1226 360900.

New Automatic Spray Line Installed

May 17, 2013/in Products, Wood

Schubert Technical Services Ltd, have successfully installed a new automatic panel spray coating line at Staircraft Ltd.

Along with current UK manufacturing trends, Staircraft have become increasingly frustrated with transit times and quality issues from far-flung subcontractors outside the UK and when Staircraft decided to significantly grow the business internally and take control of all of their production, including the finishing process, Schuberts had the answers.

Significant effort was put into multiple sites visits and full scale tests at labs in Italy were carried out with the customer’s product and paints, alongside Schuberts.

An order was placed for a new finishing system consisting of infeed conveyor, Rotofast brushing/cleaning machine, modulating electric IR pre-heat section, panel spray machine, outfeed conveyor, drying tunnel with modulating infrared, jetted air and cooling section. A separate line was also ordered for profile sanding with belts and wheels for the spindles, balustrades and long profiled sections.

The system installed is flexible enough to deal with softwood as well as MDF substrates, narrow profile pieces, as well as large full sized panels. The Kronos spray machine will spray primer and base coat through one dedicated circuit and then top coat through a second circuit, meaning colour changes and production down-time are kept to an absolute minimum. The innovative belt cleaning system ensures no overspray returns to the start of the machine and that the overspray can be reused. A 15” touch-screen colour LCD display allows the storage of recipes and allows all working parameters to be altered and saved.

Dean Lucas, Production Director at Staircraft says “Schuberts worked hard to get what we have found to be a perfect solution to our wide ranging production. We needed a system that not only would deal with our flat panel work but also complex, non-standard profiles with stop chamfer edges. They had all the answers to the preparation of the pieces, the spraying and drying. As our business grows over the next years, we are confident in the investment we have made in the new finishing systems and can recommend the thoroughness of their work.”

Along with panel and profile coating systems (conveyors, sanding machines, vacuum coating, drying systems etc), Giardina offer full robotic spray systems for 3D shaped panels with their Robot spray machines, edge coating machines that sand, seal and paint raw MDF and chipboard and have just launched a more affordable range of automatic panel spray machines aimed at the low-medium production levels.

No longer should the world of autospray machines be the reserve of the large companies – small businesses can now afford their own autospray machine! Together with Schubox catalytic infrared drying technology, they make a very tempting choice! From small stand-alone coating machines to full turn-key lines, Schuberts are leading the way in the UK for automatic finishing systems.

For more information, contact www.schuberts.co.uk

Want a Proper Spray Shop, Capable of High Gloss PU Work? Look No Further…

January 3, 0201/in News, Products, Wood

Lights, camera, high-gloss!

Schuberts have just commissioned a new spray facility for high gloss and flat matt PU kitchen components at Moores Furniture Group.

The installation will use a maximum of 4 sprayers and will produce around 1000 high gloss panels per week.

Input and extract fans are all inverter driven via pressure drop differential sensors, meaning that all dust and contamination is kept out of the spray shop, giving a perfect dust-free finish.
An air input system, filters heated factory air, from biomass boiler heat exchangers and diffuses this directly into the spray shop, giving constant warm clean air for the spray/gel processes.
A Schubox gas catalytic drying system combines with the large spray shop to cure the solvent PU in record time. Drying times between 60 to 90 minutes are typical for Moores, depending on film thickness applied.

Along with a heated paint mix room, anti-spark quiet fan sets, all ducting, 1000lux lighting throughout and fully adjustable spray partition walls, this is a top-notch spray shop!
For more information, contact sales@schuberts.co.uk or call 0044 (0)1226 360900