Hello finishing experts.

I have only had finishing in house for about two years.

The setup is as follows:

2500 sq ft . global finishing solutions closed face booth, foam suppression, denray downdraft for whitewood and primer / sealer sanding, dust free drying / flash off room, 3 CA tech 14 : 1 AAA pumps, 1 Kremlin eos . lots of carts and racks, air random orbits adn 3x4 square sanders.

So not the most advanced setup but what I could afford at the time.

Currently using ML products , Claw lock for primer , Klearvar for stain topcoats, woodsong for stains , stealth for color topcoats.

My question is how ling should it take for a kitchen to get sprayed start to finish ? I am talking average kitchen , shaker doors, MDF or 5 piece maple with MDF panel. Average 25 - 30 cabients so 40-50 doors and drawer fronts, a couple reffer end panels , five sticks of crown backer and five sticks of crown , five to eight toe kicks, a few fillers.

Currently my guy spraying has experience but by no means a carrer finisher. They are putting good looking product out but with two guys in there it is taking a solid week to get the finishing done for one kitchen.

Doors come in from Cal door so pretty clean to start with. Does 80 man hours seem excessive for finishing this amount ? seems to be taking quite a bit longer than I am comfortable with.

I appreciate any insight that you carrer finishers have as I want to make the finish room a profitable part of the business.

The first thing I would tell you to do is work with your guys on several jobs from start to finish. Then you will have a "feel" of what it takes to get the job done.
Then sit down with them and ask them "what do you need to get things done more efficiently"
I would love to know what the outcome is. Most of the time it is help to sand and speeding up dry times.
Good luck !

That sounds like 1 day worth of priming; 2 days worth of top coating.. with other work getting done between dry times. 3 man finish shop with additional sanding help when needed. I always try to keep someone; wether myself or apprentice spraying at all times. The jobs we do are a lot bigger though 200+ doors. Your setup is similar to ours.

I'll bet good money they are spending way too much time handling parts. As mentioned, put on a mask and spend a week in the booth. It's very likely not the guy unless you have him tied to the wrong kind of production spray equipment. Give him high volume spray equipment and methods of passing parts through the booth faster. Besides, finding a new finisher will really cost you and nearly impossible to find.

I agree its not the person dragging their feet, its usually in setup and handling.

I switched to a fairly inexpensive hang line and our finishing efficiency skyrocketed.

I have one finisher, he will do a job like that in about 3 days. Whitewood Sanding, 1 coat primer, 2 top coats with scuff sand between all finish coats.

Gary ,
Did you have any probl with runs when using CV ? I see what you are saying the dry time as you do one side at a time stinks , what about sanding between coats ? Do you just remove the hinge clips and then reinstall after sand ? Also I can see benefits of not having all that open square footage for dust to set in as it's flashing off.plus no marks on backs from the dry racks .

We were very surprised with how short the learning curve was. We had some runs where we had to double coat when rails met stiles on doors and face frames but worked them out. It is not necessary to remove clips and other hangers but it is fast to do if you want to. Dust and rack marks are a thing of the past. I wouldn't want to go back to spraying flat...no way...not ever.