Industrial Coatings Applicator EPAs

Last August, I wrote about apprenticeship end-point assessments (EPAs) and, 12 months later, I am going to be writing about them again. On this occasion it relates to the Industrial Coatings Applicator programme, for which BINDT is an approved EPA provider, which took some effort to achieve due to the lockdown and disjointed communication outside of BINDT’s control. Assistance was found from a person who probably went beyond their remit to push the application through the approval system, so it all worked out in the end.

I was one of the allocated assessors, as in previous employment I have set up and invigilated painting inspector examinations. Additionally, during other periods of employment, I have performed limited painting inspections as a client’s representative and have worked close by as blasting and coating were being performed. The second assessor was very experienced, has generated course materials and been in the industry for a significantly long time; however, they had less experience regarding the EPA process. Together we made a good team. It also helped that the facilities used were suitable, with clean rooms for discussions and a commercial coatings workshop for practical work, with suitable sample pieces to work on. The apprentices were well prepared, just as all of the NDT apprentices have been, and the process went well.

Part of the process was to assess wet film thickness, which involved pushing the comb into the wet coating and seeing which of the lugs were covered in paint and which were not. With a typical loss of 50% volume, the apprentice had to achieve a wet thickness of 150 to 175 microns, giving a final thickness of over 75 microns. With NDT and the magnetic testing method, there is mention of a contrast paint thickness of 50 microns; however, do we ever test this and is it demonstrated in the training schools? The contrast paint is there to provide a contrasting background so that the indications picked up by the typically black ink can be seen. Is there a thought process that could lead to white ink being used so that contrast paint is no longer required, speeding up the inspection, using fewer consumables and being more environmentally friendly? For those who wish to measure magnetic testing contrast paint dry film thickness, there are items of equipment that can do this, as trying to measure the wet film thickness is probably not possible with the rapid drying of the paint and no data regarding what the wet film should be.

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