12 m Carbon Fibre Boat Paint Booth

The KT-PQ-III-PLUS is a spray and bake booth built for 12 m carbon-fibre boat hulls, decks and components. It takes a complete hull on its transport cradle, gives it a clean, dust-free environment for two-component polyurethane primers, topcoats and clear coats, and then bakes the finish at 60 °C. With an internal working envelope of 15,000 × 7,000 × 4,000 mm, it handles a 12 m hull with room for operators on both sides.

Key specifications

Why composite boats need a booth built for them

A carbon-fibre hull is not painted to hide it. On most modern boats the fibre is the finish, or the gloss clear coat over it is. That changes what the booth has to do.

· Surface quality is the product. Dust, fibre lint or overspray landing on wet clear coat cannot be polished out without losing gloss. Full-ceiling F5 filtration and 0.30 m/s downdraft keep the air clean across the whole envelope.

· The workpiece is long, not tall. A 12 m hull on a cradle is 2 m high but needs 15 m of clear length. Side-downdraft with raised side plenums delivers the required velocity without excavating a floor pit — a major saving on civil work.

· Bake temperature has a ceiling. Prepreg resin systems have a glass transition temperature. Baking above it will distort the hull. Four independent zones let you bake a small part without heating the whole booth, and every setpoint stays adjustable.

· Two-component polyurethane is moisture-sensitive. Its hardener reacts with water and releases CO₂, which shows up as blushing and pinholes. Where the booth stands in a humid coastal hall, dehumidification matters as much as cooling.

· Operators must reach the hull sides and the bow flare. Two pneumatic 3D trolleys on side-wall rails put people exactly where the geometry is hardest, without ladders inside the booth.

Airflow and air handling

Four supply cabinets and four exhaust cabinets serve the booth, one set per zone. Each supply cabinet uses two external-rotor double-inlet centrifugal fans (BTAE-450H, 4 kW each) and each exhaust cabinet a single double-inlet fan (BTAE-560H, 11 kW). Every motor runs on its own ABB variable frequency drive, so air volume can be trimmed to the work in hand rather than running flat out all day.

A Belimo electric modulating damper switches the booth between spray and bake. In spray mode the booth runs on 100 % fresh air, as it must. In bake mode it recirculates up to 70 % of the air, which is what makes all-electric heating practical at this size: the heaters only have to lift the recirculated air the last few degrees instead of heating 112,000 m³/h of fresh air from ambient every minute.

Heating

Heating is entirely electric — no gas, no diesel. Each of the four units carries 21 stainless-steel element tubes of 3 kW, giving 66 kW per zone and 264 kW installed. The PLC energises only the zones you select, so a single component can be baked without bringing the whole booth to temperature. From 20 °C the booth reaches 60 °C in 10 to 15 minutes and holds there for the 30 to 45 minutes the coating needs.

Filtration and VOC control

Intake air passes a G4 bag pre-filter and then F5 full-depth adhesive ceiling media. Exhaust passes two stages of glass-fibre paint-stop — the first in the side collection plenums, the second at the base of the exhaust cabinets — and then a honeycomb bed of activated carbon brick (100 × 100 × 100 mm, iodine value ≥ 650) that adsorbs benzene and xylene before the air leaves the building. Annual carbon replacement is about 12.2 m³ across the four units.

Lighting

188 T8 LED tubes of 18 W sit in IP65 light boxes: three ceiling rows (108 tubes) and two side-wall rows (80 tubes) on both long walls. Output exceeds 1,000 lux with a colour rendering index of 90 or better at 5,000–6,000 K. The side rows are what make the lower hull sides and the bow flare visible — areas that ceiling lighting alone always leaves in shadow.

Control and safety

A PLC with touchscreen runs preset spray, flash-off and bake programmes, all adjustable. Motors are protected by ABB drives; wiring in the hazardous zones runs in steel conduit to Ex junction boxes; the whole system is bonded to a single equipotential earth of no more than 4 Ω. Explosion-proof motors and lights are fitted throughout the hazardous zones. Fire suppression is by cabinet-type HFC-227ea, three 150 L cabinets carrying 387 kg of agent, with Ex smoke and heat detectors.

Optional items

FAQ

 Call to Action

Get Best Price

Send us your workpiece dimensions, weight, coating specification and available floor area. Our engineering team will size the booth and return a configured proposal.