Bridgman St Panelbeaters commercial manager Jarrod Hodson said the PPG “MoonWalk” paint mixing system — believed to be the only one in the city — was the latest in a series of steps taken by the business to reduce their impact on the environment.
Using a handheld scanner, the machine found the best colour match for a vehicle and automatically mixed paints together to create it, ready to be sprayed on to the vehicle.
The $48,000 state-of-the-art investment arrived last last year and would be the “jewel in the crown” for the environment, he said.
The business had shifted from solvent to more environmentally friendly water-based products for vans, utes and cars about six years ago, which the “MoonWalk” enhanced by producing close to zero waste.
“Even though we had moved to water-based, we still were essentially manually mixing it by hand, on a computer with computer scales, but still by hand to a formula.
“All we do is essentially tell it what to mix and put the container in, so it’s a vast step up from the last step we made.”
The business had also recycled all their paint thinners, paint cans and discarded metal panels from vehicles for nearly a decade.
Mr Hodson believed the industry had moved away from the perception of “being just old tradies and stuff” to a highly technical industry.
“Just going decades and decades back, I think panelbeaters and painters were seen in general as just people that would be on the booze and that type of thing.
“But that is definitely a stereotype, whereas now … it’s a highly technical field.”
