Repainting an Old Vibratory Bowl on a Budget

This article is about giving your older vibratory bowl a facelift on a budget.  All you will need is cleaning product, shop rags, a sander, sand paper, MEK & a few cans of spray paint.  We chose our 12 cubic foot vibratory bowl with an unloading deck for this project. We were able to finish the whole job in (1) eight hour shift.  We spent the morning prepping the machine and painted in the afternoon.  This machine gets as much use and any other piece of equipment in our shop and it hasn't been painted in about 5 years.  We will be painting all the machines in our shop over the next couple of weeks, but this is where we started:

This was a simple (3) step process:

First we sprayed the machine with a diluted ViChem VL-750/water spray and let it set for about 5 minutes.  We then used the "As seen on TV" high pressure hose connection to spray the machine down and get the media sludge off the side of the machine and the base.  This did a great job of getting the crud off of the machine, but we still needed to prep the surface.

The next step is to sand the machine.  We use both a palm sander and an orbital to get in all the areas that need to be sanded.  80 grit sandpaper should get you a nice surface ready to take paint.  Do not take shortcuts on this step. The overall appearance of the final product relies heavily on a properly prepped surface.  Take your time and be meticulous.  You will regret it later if you don't.  Once the machine has been sanded and wiped down, do a final clean with a shop rag and MEK.

The final step is painting the machine. Whether you use a spray gun or can of spray paint.  Try to maintain a 90 degree angle from the surface and paint in sweeping flat motions... side to side.  Ease off the trigger in between passes and make sure the can is adequately shaken throughout the process.  This will most likely take (2) coats of paint, but it will be worth it when you are done. 

Vibratory finishing is a dirty process, but this can bring an old looking machine back to life and it can be achieved on a slow day in the shop.

At Mikro Industrial Finishing we run a full time tumbling job shop. Please contact us to arrange for free testing and process development.