Industrial Painter and Sprayer

What is an Industrial Painter and Sprayer?

Duties of an industrial painter and sprayer include the following.

• Ensuring uniform application of paint coating on the surface of the metal is important. Because, non-uniform junctures can easily become easy spots for corrosion due to differential exposure the metal will receive and the resulting difference in percolation of moisture.
• Many a times there is demand for industrial painters to paint the inner sections of the industrial buildings. This requires careful study of the manufacturing process to be conducted within and the kind of chemical vapours and temperature and fumes that will be produced within will have to be studied as there as is chance of them reacting with the paint coating.
• Before application of paints ensuring the surface is smoothened and cleaned so as not to capture any dust or particulate matter in the coating.
• Spraying involves using high tech machinery, the calibration of which the industrial painter and sprayer is required to be familiar with.
• Sometimes older paint coatings might need to be removed.
• Blasting techniques are an additional skillset which involves blasting powdered abrasives onto a surface at high speed to make the micro-abrasions to make the surface ultra-smooth before painting.
• Assessing which base is to be used for the paint to ensure maximum adhesion to the surface based on the material and texture.

Day in the life

A day in the life of an industrial painter and sprayer revolves around the duties mentioned above. A duty log is created to assess priority of articles that need to be painted. As much the urgency of a finished good, there are several other factors that go into evaluating which article needs to be painted when. Each base oil of a paint has different timing for drying. Adherence is also dependant on the material. And many a times more than one coating is required either for protection or to bring out the desired hue. Accordingly the painting of articles is to be planned taking the intermittent stages of painting and drying and reapplication into account.

One gets to interact with multiple teams and even has to interact with the design team for providing feedback and with the delivery team to determine on delivery timing. It is a highly skilled job which gets a lot say in the shop floor as it is a very important step in the manufacturing process. Most auto companies have a separate building designated for painting.

Work schedule and typical hours

Work schedules are fixed and are the eight hours is the norm in most industries. The work is not seasonal, so similar work hours are expected throughout the year.

Growth of the job

It is a niche skilled job that is high in demand across industries. Also salary is determined by the industry that one works in. For instance, working in defence armament factories with specialised paints obviously leads to much higher salary.

Apart from painting and spraying there is also a huge overlap with the requirement for those who are also proficient with blasting to remove non uniform protrusions on surfaces of the final goods. Additional specialisations such as this lead to higher pay packages besides getting more opportunity for employment for beginners.

Typical employers

Being an industrial painter or sprayer open up avenues in a wide range of industries. These include automobile companies, steel sheet manufacturing companies, shipyards, defence factories, Plumbing and tubing equipment, body shops. The list is endless.