I was talking with my buddy Dave the other day. Somehow we both came to one of those “lightbulb moments” when the light comes on for both of us and we simultaneously came to this understanding between us.

I’m not suggesting that together we pulled the switch and the whole marquee of life lit up. It was more like a small group of bulbs. But it got our attention none the less.

We were talking about the need to change and adapt and that progress in technology means that we may need to do things differently as a result.

Here was his light bulb moment: He had made the decision to try M.L. Campbell’s Aguatana 2K water borne. I had been telling him what a great product I thought it was and I really wanted him to try it so that I could hear his opinion. I count on Dave for a finisher’s opinion. I have a great deal of respect for him.

Dave is conducting an on-going search for the water borne coating that he can fall in love with. In this trial he found out something about the use of that coating in a production situation that I had not experienced in my time in the booth.

He was telling me that he had had problems getting the coating to flow out smoothly. I think, in part, that this is due to the fact that it’s really hot in Portland this week and we don’t usually have to deal with that. But this summer, like all others, has its hot days none the less.

The two parts of our ah-ha moment happened when we realized that new coatings technology probably means that we need to approach how we build things as well as how we spray things in the booth. He was spraying a project that amounted to a group of flat slabs connected yet held off from each other by dowels. There was a 1/2-inch space between each slab. That required all six sides of each slab be finished. He was having trouble spraying those edges and the faces while balancing the extremes of runs and dry spray.

Look for more information about our ah-ha moment in my next blog.

Until next time…spray on!