The Wheelabrator® WS 4/210 Spinner Hanger has become an integral component of the paint stripping process for automobile manufacturers. Toyota''s Camry plant in Georgetown, KY approached Wheelabrator to duplicate a process that Toyota was using at a factory in Japan. During the vehicle painting process, not only do the car components get painted, but so do the jigs and fixtures that hold them.
"The process Wheelabrator developed for Toyota allows us to strip paint off these parts in 3-5 minutes," says Kevin Lawler, specialist paint 1 production engineer for Toyota. "Ideally the jigs and fixtures are cleaned every 5-10 passes through the machine. Previously this was a very time-consuming process, which took 24 hours and involved a highly caustic method with a hazardous acidic material."
Toyota currently uses a Wheelabrator WS 4/210 Spinner Hanger and nontraditional media to clean the paint off the jigs.
"At first we tried grit and shot," Lawler continues. "Then we switched to a medium similar to one used in Japan. That is when the results really became evident." Smaller parts are cleaned in a Wheelabrator 6 cu ft Tumblast® machine.
The AM General - Hummer H2 Assembly Plant in Mishawaka, IN has also found success cleaning jigs with a Wheelabrator Tumblast.
"This process has resolved our paint problem by eliminating the rejects that were previously caused from paint flaking off the jigs and contaminating the paint," says Ross Richardson, the plant''s lead technical support engineer for painting. "Now we are always clean and the paint is no longer contaminated."
The Wheelabrator WS 4/210 Spinner Hanger offers the perfect solution for cleaning and preparation of cavernous and odd shaped parts that do not adapt easily to batch machine processing. Spinner Hangers also work well for parts that are too delicate for a Tumblast and too small for Table Machines. Parts loaded onto the hanger arrangement are rotated during the blast cycle and blasted from multiple angles, resulting in cost effective, chemical-free cleaning for a broad range of production requirements.
Available in a range of sizes with two to four blast wheels, Wheelabrator Spinner Hangers are prewired for easy installation and offer reduced floor space requirements.