The Two Key Things to do to Reduce Painting and Sandblast Costs

Usually things are complicated and not easy to simplify. However, in regards to painting and sandblasting there are really two key things you can implement that by doing so can easily reduce the costs of painting and sandblasting 30- 50 %.  Will discuss first the key to reducing painting costs and second the key to reducing sandblasting costs.

To reduce painting costs the number one factor to improve is transfer efficiency.  By improving transfer efficiency you will save on the amount of paint you buy.  This can have huge benefits. Take for example if you have a transfer efficiency of 30% and increase it to 60% you will have saved approximately 50% on costs.  The key is knowing what you can do to improve transfer efficiency. Typically there a few things you can do to improve transfer efficiency. First, you can properly adjust your current equipment. Adjusting your current equipment should include selecting the minimal air needed to properly atomize the coating and not more than that, as well as keeping fluid pressures to a minimal when fluid pressure is a separate control than air pressure. Second, you can evaluate your current equipment and see if it is properly matched to your work. Each type of equipment has different transfer efficiencies and are better suited for different applications.  To get an overview of transfer efficiency you can review the article here. However, to know if a type of equipment is right for your work, it is usually a good idea to evaluate with someone about the work you are doing to learn what spray equipment makes the most sense.

To reduce sandblast costs the key is to reuse media. Typically unless you are blasting equipment that has a lot of non separable contaminants (ie oils), you can use reusable blast media. The cost savings are substantial for example based on a cost of 300 per ton of expendable vs 1200 a ton for recyclable media blasting about 20 hours per week, 46 weeks a year, with a single sandblaster you can expect to save about 100,000 dollars. To achieve that there is up front equipment costs but it only takes about 3 months blasting that often to be profitable from the investment. To evaluate whether recyclable media is possible it is important to consider what you are blasting, what kind of contaminants are present, and where you are blasting. If your object is not contaminated with contaminant that cannot be separated from media and you can provide an enclosed area where blasting alone would take place it may make sense to evaluate recoverable blast media for your sandblasting.