Neat, thanks for the link. IIRC the one in the show was used to paint an arbitrary large image, just "scrubbing" over any yet-unpainted sections, at any angle. Seems possible with real-world tech.
Yes, and when you paint as much as they do they get good at it. I've seen a guy who's freehand looked better than what I can do with tape - and he was much faster.
Pretty cool. For the next step the sprayers don't work like a normal spray gun, instead of pressure they use a spinning contraption to mist the paint and static electricity as a kind of terminal guidance to get over 90% of the paint onto the object being painted.
Wait. How does this work? I have an small spray gun that I use for small metal and wood projects that I hook to an air compressor. It can be used for smaller detail work on cars. Is there a way to reclaim my paint or is this just for larger industrial processes?
We tried one of those when we repainted the original lap siding of our 1920 house a few years ago.
It did not work well. Everything had to be just right for it to work properly. If the paint was not a uniform thickness, if there were any old paint drips hanging over the edge of the siding, or if the siding was not laid straight the same width across the wall, it wouldn't shave off the paint evenly.
We found the best tool for the job was a radiant heat gun made from an old toaster oven and a paint scraper. You'd heat the paint until it started to soften, then scrape it off with a putty knife.
Like the parent said, it was difficult work requiring at a minimum a ventilator and gloves, and try the best we could, it was impossible to contain all the paint chips. But I think a few paint dust chips left behind is probably trivial compared to the amount of lead in the soil around our house from decades of cars and trucks going by our home burning leaded gasoline.
In this case, "more capable" is an anti-feature. Paint "just works" because it's so damn simple and easy. And with the added benefit that it comes pre-installed, so you don't need to comparison shop between four other tools to see if you like them or not.
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