Lonnie L. Pillar is a member of the Electrocoat Application Engineering Team with the Valspar Corp. He has more than nine years of paint and coatings experience, including roles in product development, technical service, problem solving, system design and customer training. He can be reached at 612.335.7651 or lpillar@valspar.com.
Several years ago, internal and external pressures drove Ames True Temper to make its paint system a more efficient and on-demand process with the ability to coat six colors. Equipment upgrades such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and mix-proof valves, combined with vendor assistance, contributed to an automatic paint transfer process capable of switching from one color to another in a matter of minutes.
