Vehicle bodyshops- why is an "oven" important?

Hi all,

been getting quotes for some bodywork repair to my car, and one of the things thats emerging is that some have an ‘oven’ and some don’t.

Does it matter?

To provide a dust free paint environment, fume extraction and to cook the paint.
In this day anyone that doesn’t have a spray booth is really back street.

Ovens make it a good temperature to make paint go off. In the past you had 2 pack paint, which had a catalyst to make it go off, but water based paints don’t have that. Also it makes the surface dry before painting the next layer. Too much heat can cause an orange peel affect, like BMW’s have. But that’s usually caused by radiant heat.

They’re for cooking wings, or even a whole chicken.

Sorry 😳

Ah, I see. The car does have water-based paint, so I guess an oven is a good thing. I’m not sure, need to review the quotes, but the cheaper quotes might tie up with the oven-less places. Is not having an oven a show-stopper- would you go elsewhere if it was your car?

You get what you pay for.

Check out the painters work. Oven is a must.

Oven is pretty much essential since they banned the mass use of 2 pack paint that used chemicals (like cellulose thinners) to suspend the paint. The thinners would evaporate at low (ish) temperatures so the paint would dry ok in a warm clean workshop, and give reasonable results. The newer water based paints need much higher temperatures to evaporate the water and let he paint dry. Then post painting the oven is turned up higher to bake the paint, this gives it a harder more durable surface finish.

If its a new-ish car of reasonable value go to a decent place. Some back street body shops will turn out pretty poor work.

The actual water based base coat part is blown dry as if the panel is heated up during painting the paint goes on patchy as as patchy thing.
Sorry about being picky but ,at last a subject I actually know about!

I wish I’d asked this question earlier in the day, as I could ring the places and find this out. Is this oven a distinctive-looking thing?

If it helps any, I’ve been quoted roughly £300 (thats an average of a few places) to do my bonnet and O/S passenger door. Does this sound like what an over-based place would ask?

Actually, a second question. A couple of the quotes were from mobile places. They seemed to have some sort of marquee they erect around the car. Without an oven, how can they guarantee a decent finish?

I couldnt say what how they would quote if they do oe dont own an oven, but the oven is about the size of a large single garage with a big pair of doors at one end to drive the car in. These are big enough to get a complete car in and walk around while painting it. Will have a grid type floor as the painter uses an air fed mask and the over spray is extracted from the oven along with any dust etc to keep a clean working enviroment for the wet paint so it is not contaminated.

Cheers NCB. The place I was leaning towards (which wasn’t the cheapest) was mentioned to me by a friend. I’ll be checking out his car tomorrow, but if memory serves the finish looked pretty good. Or what I mean is: the finish was unobtrusive.

The oven is used to bake the paint which gives a more durable finish.

You still need to bake proper solvent based 2k paints and lacquers. Dust, moisture and temperature are critical in spraying. if it’s too cold and damp then the temperature drop caused by the solvent evaporating can cool the air enough to cause condensation which will ruin solvent based finishes my messing up the chemical reaction.

You may well have a water based colour coat but the lacquer will probably be solvent.

We have 9 infrared ovens at my shop and we also have 2 blown ovens for larger jobs. Our process allows us to put out an average 35 cars out the door a day. Technology is always changing but the old adage of prep is the key to a good job is as true as always.

The mobile outfits used to come to our work to do small paint jobs for our lease cars. Used to do an amazing job, I couldn’t see any flaws in their work. I think they used mobile heaters to provide localised heat to do the job. I would therefore think a whole bonnet and a door may be at their limit of what they can do? Not an expert so just a guess…..

Cheers all. All excellent info.

Had a repair on my car’s near side, fairly minor depth scratch (but long), the main difference in the quotes was the cost of labour

Chap who did it said lot of the work is due to having to blend in the damaged area

They had an oven and weren’t a mobile job

tbf 300 quid is cheap.. paint is not cheap.. i usually pay about 3/500 for paint on a motorbike ( tank panels etc..) the guy there swears by heat as it equals up temps etc etc so that seperate componenets are all done in the same or equal conditions . especially important for bikes becasue the panels are done individually but sit very close once completed so the colour mating /tones/ hues have to be spot on.