Paint Shop

Fires in paint shops are often difficult for firefighters to extinguish and therefore frequently result in a heavy loss. A prime reason for the cause and severity of these fires is the flammable liquids involved.  

To reduce the risk of a fire starting in the paint shop—as well as to minimize the severity should one ignite—utilize Justrite safety cans for dispensing flammable liquids. While safety cans are a great start, they need to be stored properly too. Store Justrite safety cans securely and safely in one of our flammable liquid safety cabinets. Self-closing devices on both minimize spills from the safety cans as well as ensure that safety cabinet doors will be closed in the event of a fire.

Justrite safety cabinets are available in a wide range of capacities to store from up to 90 gallons of flammable liquids in safety cans down to benchtop storage of aerosol cans. Numerous configuration options allow for centralized storage, storage at the work area, or both. And for non-flammable hazardous liquid storage, poly cabinets are an excellent choice.

During the course of paint and body work, it is common for technicians to clean parts. But this seemingly routine task is not without risk; the cleaning solution, which is often toxic, can create a fire hazard in the paint shop. Uncontrolled and open containers of parts cleaning solution may be a health hazard, can create a dangerous spill, and definitely increases your risk of a fire.

When only a small amount of cleaner is required—such as when cleaning with a rag—use plunger cans for controlled dispensing that drain any residual cleaner back into the can. Reservoir sizes range from 1 pint to 1 gallon and allow you to dispense cleaner wherever it is needed. The plunger also acts as a flame arrester, providing an additional layer of safety.

For parts washing and rinsing, Justrite has several alternatives, all designed to safely contain and control the cleaning solution. For parts immersion, the Justrite dip tank—with its 1- to 8-gallon capacities—is a convenient solution which can be used anywhere. The wash tank provides a basket to securely contain small parts while they are cleaned and is available in 1- to 6-gallon capacities. And if you are looking for a proper parts cleaning station in the paint/body shop, Justrite’s floor-standing, foot-powered, parts rinse tank provides the convenience of installing it precisely where you need it and without costly power installation.

Paint shops use enormous quantities of liquids to paint and repair vehicles. Pigments, extenders, binders, thinners, lacquers, solvents, and additives are just a few of the liquid chemicals that are involved in the vehicle and parts painting process. For commonly used products, it is often far more economical and efficient to store and dispense them from drums.

Drums are great for your paint shop because they hold large quantities, yet are movable and, with the right equipment, easy to handle. However, their potential to cause a sizable spill and problem in your paint shop must be recognized and addressed. When drums are haphazardly stored and handled, incidents happen. Almost all issues with drums can be avoided with the correct equipment.

Justrite provides total protection for drum storage, whether the need be to protect the drums from fire exposure or to contain spills, leaks, and drips. Protect drums of flammable liquids from fires with our flammable liquid safety cabinets for up to 2 drums. For spill protection, drum containment pallets and accumulation centers are designed to accommodate anywhere from 1 to 8 drums.

Justrite drum handling equipment also includes a full line of drum accessories, handling devices, and drum collection centers.

These days, aerosol cans are probably widely used in your paint shop. With the increased acceptance of using aerosol paint in vehicle and parts painting, more and more painters are using them for small or hard-to-reach jobs. On some days, it might appear that your waste receptacles are brimming with used aerosol cans. This is not a good thing; after use, aerosol cans remain a potential hazard in the workplace.

With contents that are under pressure and often flammable, they pose a risk if punctured or exposed to fire. An aerosol can rocketing violently around the paint shop can rapidly create a bad situation or make an already bad situation worse.

In addition to their hazardous quality, aerosol cans also become part of the waste stream. As waste, they continue to carry their risk, along with other environmental concerns, all the way to the landfill. Justrite helps eliminate this risk with environmentally friendly Aerosolv® Aerosol Can Recycling Systems. The easy-to-operate device enables you to quickly depressurize the can and safely drain the contents, transforming it into safe, recyclable steel. This saves disposal costs and protects everyone who encounters it.

Your paint shop generates a large amount of waste every day: masking paper and tape, Tyvek suits, and masks, just to name a few. But these all such waste items require somewhere to be disposed of properly. Clean, neat, and organized workplaces are safer and more productive.

Once the combustibles your paint shop produces make it to the waste receptacle, they carry their fire-causing potential with them. Even when staff are instructed not to do so, a car’s ashtray might get emptied into the trash can or someone inadvertently tosses a hot piece of metal into it. Unbeknownst to everyone, all that masking paper is beginning to smolder.

Justrite’s Cease-Fire® series of waste cans provides the rugged dependability of steel cans with a self-extinguishing lid. The unique design uses smoke from the fire to cut off its supply of oxygen. This ends the fire quickly and stops the chaos that ensues when a fire is discovered in the workplace.

Have a neater, cleaner, and safer work area by securely and safely managing your refuse. The Cease-Fire receptacle is available in sizes ranging from 12- to 55-gallons.

The reason that Justrite makes oily waste cans is because, under the right circumstances, a pile of oily rags can spontaneously ignite. So, after your paint shop technicians use a solvent-soaked rag, what they do with afterwards absolutely does matter.

When piled up, the oil or solvents on rags oxidize and produce heat. If the heat is allowed to build, the pile of rags can ignite. Though called “spontaneous” combustion, the process is anything but spontaneous, as it takes days or longer for the improperly discarded rags to generate enough heat to ignite.

Justrite knows the risk is real and has the product to eliminate it. Use our foot-operated, self-closing oily waste cans to effectively contain oily rags. The can isolates the contents from potential ignition sources and sufficiently reduces oxygen to prevent spontaneous combustion. The design also allows for air flow under the can to dissipate any generated heat, as well as to prevent rust. With cans available in sizes from 6 to 21 gallons, we can provide an oily waste solution for every size paint shop.

The tasks a paint shop performs every day create a fertile field for eye injuries in mind. Spray painting, mixing toxic chemicals, sanding, and buffing all have a high potential for getting something into the eyes that can cause anywhere from minor to serious damage.

Whenever any foreign material gets in the eyes, usually the best solution is flushing the eyes with water. When it is a strong solvent or acid, the rapid and continuous flushing of the eyes may be the only way to avoid a permanent eye injury.

But flushing the eyes does not mean to rinse them briefly. In most cases, and particularly when chemicals are involved, OSHA/ANSI recommend that eyes be flushed continuously for a minimum of 15 minutes with copious amounts of water. The most effective way to accomplish this level of eye flushing is by using emergency face and eyewash stations. Justrite wall- and pedestal-mounted eye/face wash stations with a full range of options provide a high degree of assurance in the event they are needed.

If your service needs take you outside of the range of your permanent eye/facewash stations, Justrite has several portable models as well to ensure protection for your staff throughout your facility.

The chemicals used in the paint shop can be dangerous if they get on the skin. Some chemicals cause immediate severe pain and burning, while others may have milder reactions but be carcinogenic. In the case of a body shop, vehicles possess numerous chemical hazards with their fuel, fluids, and batteries.

If chemicals make contact with skin, the solution is to remove them from the skin as soon as possible. One of the best ways is to flush the skin with water. If the chemical is a strong acid, the only way to avoid potentially scarring injuries is to remove contaminated clothing and flush the affected area with copious amounts of water for at least 15 minutes.

Effective flushing, however, requires far more than a sink faucet or garden hose. To be effective, the flushing must provide full, drenching coverage of affected areas and have a reliable water supply. It also must be easy to access and intuitive to use.

Justrite’s large and comprehensive line of emergency chemical safety showers can be installed where and how you need them. Simple to operate, these safety showers provide a sense of protection for your employees should the need arise. Address your specific needs with drench, combination, cubicle, curtain, and hand- or foot-operated chemical safety showers.

In many instances, leaks and spills are unexpected events. But in locations such as paint shops—where large amounts of liquids are used daily—a leak or spill may neither uncommon nor unexpected. In some cases, it is an event you anticipate and prepare for. But uncontained spills of any variety can rapidly become a much larger problem. This is particularly the case with flammable liquids that grow into a large surface area spill. The larger the surface area, the larger the fire hazard.

Justrite helps you manage spills by containing them with one of our quick-to-deploy containment devices. Justrite’s drain cans can be kept in close proximity to liquid dispensing stations in order to contain leaks or overfills. And if your body shop is removing a fuel tank, Justrite’s maintenance spill berms can be placed underneath to contain well in excess of the full contents of the tank.

Many spills start out small and manageable. But even if they are discovered relatively quickly, the spill can still get out of hand. The primary reason personnel fail to contain spills is that they are ill-equipped. Spills are far easier to contain with correct equipment. For larger spill control, Justrite prepares you with water-filled booms, diverters, drain covers, and custom-length booms.

Paint shops are noisy. Orbital sanders run continuously, and other pneumatic tools add short bursts of high-decibel noise. When the noise is multiplied by several of these devices operating concurrently, the noise level can reach a point where it can permanently damage hearing.

According to OSHA, noisy work environments can also negatively affect productivity, cause stress, and contribute to workplace accidents because people cannot hear warnings.  

When noise is produced consistently from a particular area—such as with orbital sanding—there are steps that can be taken to mitigate the issue. Even though sanders are slightly quieter than pneumatic saws, it is the continuous noise of the orbital sander that is more detrimental. Medical studies support that continuous noise is more damaging than intermittent noise.

Justrite sound barriers can be quickly erected to absorb and shield sound and reduce the perceived sound level by half. This protects your employees’ hearing and keeps your shop noise level manageable. So now, your orbital sander need not be the only thing people hear when they walk into your paint shop.

Your paint shop may use gas cylinders for many tasks like cutting and welding. The compressed gas cylinders are not given much thought because they do not do much of anything, except maybe get in the way. But compressed gas cylinders have enormous stored potential energy. Complacency around them can have terrible consequences.

The weak point of a gas cylinder is the cylinder valve assembly. Because of its exposed position, it does not take an inordinate amount of force to shear it off. If this happens, the cylinder depressurizes violently, causing it to literally rocket through anything in its path.  

Many non-fire-related gas cylinder incidents are the result of mishandling or improper storage. Left unsecured and free-standing, gas cylinders are top-heavy and can easily tip over, very possibly creating the aforementioned missile.

Justrite has the gas cylinder equipment that allows you to manage your paint shop’s gas cylinders safely and efficiently. Our equipment is specifically designed to prevent cylinder valve damage while maintaining your cylinders in the safest state possible.

Move cylinders about the area and secure them in place with Justrite’s gas cylinder hand trucks, carts, and forklift cylinder pallet racks. Secure stationary cylinders with a wide selection of cylinder storage brackets and stands and cage cabinet lockers.

Parking lots and vehicle traffic areas around a paint/body shop can be dangerous areas. At a body shop, people are often unsure as to where they are supposed to go or may be distracted by their phone. In the plant paint shop, workers may be complacent because of their familiarity of the area.  Before they know it, they have struck something—or worse, someone—with their vehicle.

Eagle helps reduce these risks while pleasing customers and employees alike who will appreciate well-marked travel areas around your paint/body shop. Improve your vehicle flow and safety by defining travel lanes with Eagle’s steel bollards, poly guide-posts, clearance bars, and parking stops.

In addition to protecting your customers and employees, Eagle also helps you protect their vehicles. While moving about the paint shop, there are many opportunities in which a vehicle can strike an object, damaging the vehicle as well as potentially damaging the structure. Shield these spots with Eagle’s plastic column and pole protectors, bollard covers, and wall and corner guards.

Spills happen in paint shops. Even if you are well prepared to clean and contain the spill with absorbent pads, booms, and oil dry, disposing of the contaminated cleaning products can cause additional issues.

The problem is these materials cannot be treated like regular trash. These items are now hazardous waste and must be handled and disposed of properly at a waste disposal facility.

Fortunately, Eagle salvage drums provide a disposal solution for the contaminated material. With the lid secured, these materials can be safely stored while awaiting disposal.  Available in 20- to 95-gallon capacities, the oil- and chemical-resistant salvage drums also make an excellent storage location for your paint/body shop spill response equipment.

Your paint shop is a bustling place with vehicles and parts moving in and out of paint booths and prep areas. Technicians are always on the move, and there may be customers coming and going as they drop off and collect their vehicles. In short, the pedestrian/vehicle interface is continuous. People, pedestrians, and drivers get distracted. It only takes an instant of distraction for a vehicle and pedestrian to collide.

A key to preventing auto vs. pedestrian incidents is well-marked pedestrian crossing areas around the paint shop. Collapsible barricades marking pedestrian crossings are a highly visible and convenient way to identify crossing locations. Their easy deployment and pick-up also allow you to change pedestrian crossing areas corresponding to your service load.

Operating a paint shop requires all manner of utilities to crisscross the service area. You have compressed air drops, power cables, and hydraulic hoses that need to reach their end use point.

Running cords, wires, and hoses in the paint shop can be challenging. When the installation is a renovation or upgrade, often there is no choice but to run them over the floor/ground where they are subject to personnel and vehicle traffic.

Checkers’ cable protection covers and ramps are designed to suit any application—from your offices to your paint booth. Depending on the amount of vehicle traffic you expect, Checkers has heavy-duty and medium-duty cable covers with up to five channels.

For pedestrian areas, light-duty, low-profile, and ADA-compliant cable covers reduce tripping hazards while protecting your cords, wires, and hoses.

Allowing vehicles to drive over hoses is never advisable. Checkers offers an efficient solution with hose bridges and tunnel systems for both temporary or permanent applications. With either, your hoses are protected while allowing vehicles to pass safely over them. Hoses need not be an obstruction or inconvenience to vehicle travel in your paint shop.

For temporary use, the Diamondback® hose bridge system is the perfect answer. It deploys quickly and has easy pick-up. For permanent installation, custom design your own hose protection system with the Diamondback® series of tunnels, connectors, and ramps. All the Diamondback® options are available to accommodate 3.5” to 6.5” inside-diameter hoses.

Every paint shop technician wants a stable platform on which to work. But a body shop may have vehicles that have been damaged in an accident or a factory paint shop may have parts on rolling carts.

All these need to be stabilized prior to painting. If a vehicle or large part moves suddenly while being worked on, the result can be tragic.

Chocking vehicle wheels often can be a necessity, but it is always the safest thing to do. Checkers’ line of wheel chocks is suitable for every situation. Quickly secure the heaviest of equipment with Checkers’ highly durable, yet lightweight, polyurethane heavy-duty wheel chocks. They are rated to hold loads of just over 100 tons to over 400 tons. For more everyday vehicles, Checkers’ general purpose rubber wheel chocks are the answer and are available in chained pairs.

Paint shops are always a busy place. Vehicles and parts are constantly moving in and out for painting. With the mix of people and vehicles around the paint shop, it is critical to safety that vehicle speed through these congested spaces be controlled. This is necessary for several safety reasons, but chief among them is the distracted driver.

It should be expected that drivers will be distracted a fair amount of time while they are driving on the road. But around your paint shop’s travel and parking areas, they may be even more so because of the perceived safety of these areas. Checkers’ comprehensive line of speed-control devices help to both reduce vehicle speed and refocus the distracted driver.

Help improve safety in your paint/body shop with Checkers’ speed bumps and speed humps. Speed bumps and alley bumps are available in 4-ft. and 6-ft. models, with a 9-ft. speed bump offered. Speed humps are an excellent solution where a uniform, consistent profile and a smooth, safe ride is desired. And many of Checkers’ speed bumps and humps are constructed from 100% recycled materials.

Paint shop employees spend a significant amount of time on their feet. What they are standing on makes a difference, both in their energy and comfort. Research confirms that anti-fatigue mats have a positive effect on productivity and satisfaction, in addition to reducing injuries and illnesses associated with long-term standing.

Anti-fatigue mats are one of the simplest, yet highly effective, ways to improve working conditions in your paint/body shop. Just install the mats, and employees will stand on them. And your technicians will quickly notice the improvement over an uncovered floor or inferior mat.

NoTrax’s selection of mat systems lets you custom design your working surface solution with pre-cut sizes, custom cut-to-length mats, rolls, and tiles available. If non-slip is a requirement, NoTrax provides the same degree of flexibility. And, many NoTrax mats are constructed from 100% recycled materials.

When someone enters your paint/body shop, the entry mat is often the first thing they encounter. So, the idea is to make a nice first impression with a professionally designed and manufactured entry mat. It should literally be a “welcome mat” to your paint shop.

But entry mats can do so much more. They can, and should, provide a nice, stable, non-slip surface when someone enters. This is of the utmost importance for safety. Often your customers may be running in from the rain. Even on a normal day, think about those who may be disabled or are unsteady on their feet. Providing a surface with positive footing is key to preventing slips and falls—and potentially preventing liability as well.

Entry mats can also assist with the overall appearance of your paint/body shop, and not just at the point of entry. By design, they reduce the amount of dirt, mud, and water from intruding further into the interior.

NoTrax entry mats can serve multiple functions—helping you make a good impression while keeping your service areas clean and safe. All of your entry mat needs are covered with outdoor mats, recessed mats, hard surface mats, and custom logo mats.

Electricity is never without risk. One, it is a prime cause of fire. And two, it also kills or injures thousands of people each year through electrocution.

Within your paint shop, there is all manner of electrical equipment with ample power to injure personnel—perhaps even fatally—should an electrical fault occur. Therefore, when using electrical service equipment that has heavy power consumption, it is important to install it on an insulated surface to reduce the risk of electrical shock. NoTrax’s switchboard mats are rated for 20,000 volts and up.

Available in several roll sizes and colors, our mats offer the electrical safety required for your high-voltage service equipment.  NoTrax switchboard mats also provide enhanced traction and easy cleaning.