The powder coating shop is Kaser’s engine room: hot, busy, and largely responsible for driving the whole business forward.
The liquid coating booth is Kaser’s sail: quieter overall with long stretches of downtime, but always ready to catch a big gust.
While the powder shop requires 8-10 team members to keep production running, the liquid booth chugs along just fine with one or two. That’s partially due to a lower demand for services, and partially due to the nature of the coating itself – some days, we’re literally waiting for paint to dry.
That’s not to say that Kaser’s liquid coater gets to sit around. Quite the opposite. There’s always something to do. If you’re not actively spraying paint, you’ll be wiping drive shafts with MEK, masking half shafts with tape and foam, loading parts into the booth (manually or with a forklift, depending on their size), packaging outgoing parts, or cleaning out the booth between jobs.
The parts themselves vary in size and quantity. Some days, you’ll have 1,000 half shafts that fit in your hand. Other days, you’ll have a dump trailer that requires two sprayers’ undivided attention for a full week.
The coatings vary, too, much more than they do in powder. You’ll learn to read and rely on the data sheets.
Your closest neighbor will be Stan, in the blast booth. He’s been doing the job for 15 years, and has a lot of industry knowledge to share with someone who’s willing to learn. He makes an excellent mentor. You’ll get bonus points if you like classic rock.
Introverts seem to thrive in the liquid booth. I’m looking for someone who embraces variety, but also loves a good flow state. The more detail oriented, the better – I need you to pay close attention to data sheets, wear PPE religiously, and treat each part as though it’s your top priority, even if there are 1,000 of them.
And as always, previous experience matters very little. I’ll teach the right person everything they need to know about liquid coating.
