They knocked down our factory.
So we built the Porta-Blast.
The Money
In a previous incarnation our company was a blasting and painting contractor. We were actually quite successful and scored several big projects.
One of our favorites was for the largest heavy equipment auction company in the world. We did a lot of blasting and painting refurbishment projects for them. Working with them was challenging, but very lucrative. They provided all the facilities and equipment, and we did the grunt work.
Our job was to turn this beast:
into this beauty:
Pretty impressive eh?!
We did a lot of them:
Believe it or not we were actually fully blasting and painting one of these every day. Day in and day out. As soon as we had nailed the work flow process it became routine to knock one of these out on a daily basis. Once, under the hammer of an impossible deadline, we managed to do 44 trucks in 43 days straight.
Business was good.
The Letter.
March 17th. Enjoying the first coffee of the day and opening the mail. Out of an unmarked white envelope came the bombshell.
“Dear Sir/Madam
With reference to your application for lease renewal. It is with the utmost regret we are obliged to advise your application was unsuccessful.
The lease will not be extended past its current tenure.
Upon expiry of the lease, the property is to be returned to owner for condominium redevelopment.
All buildings, currently in use on the property, are to be demolished prior to hand over.
Please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned if we can be of further assistance.
Yours Faithfully,
This is a computer generated notification, therefore no signature is required.”
Oh dear. Let me repeat that. Ohh Shit!
With the facility gone, our business is also gone. That means in 6 months we will be homeless and all our work will stop.
Our customer still had still plenty of work for us to do. And we still wanted to do the work. The problem was, where and how to do it? Building a new facility costs mega $$. And the work load was sporadic, so the cost could not be justified. Blasting and painting in the open is neither cost nor environmentally viable. All possible options led to a dead end.
If only we had some kind of temporary facility we could erect on bare land as and when it is required. Then we could just rent some land, erect the facility, do the job, and then pack up and go when each job finished.
We tried designing several systems, but nothing really worked out. And so, with no viable way to do the work, the projects stopped.
Business was not good.
The drive.
Until one day I was driving in Perth, Australia and saw this:
Mmm, interesting. What if you could close up the canopy to make a fully enclosed facility? What if you could blast in there? What if you could paint in there? And, better still, what if you could capture all the abrasive and recycle it? And what if you could fix all the blasting and painting machinery into the containers? With a setup like that you could then blast and paint virtually anywhere. Time to get the thinking cap on.
Back to the drawing board with our design team. We had already made shipping container blastrooms. And we were already making all the required blasting and painting components. So all we had to do now was pull it all together, into one package.
Bingo.
After several rounds of experimentation and try outs we eventually wrapped up the design of the Porta-Blast. A plug and play temporary worksite blasting and painting facility.
Cost effective. Easy to erect and easy to dismantle. No more dust pollution and no more tonnes of wasted grit. Just the system we needed for our rock truck blasting and painting project.
We conceived the Porta-Blast to solve our own problem. If you are facing similar issues, maybe it is also the system for you.
- Is it the perfect blastroom for everyone? Probably not.
- Is it as productive as a full floor recovery blastroom? No it’s not.
- Will it last as long as a purpose built permanent facility? Maybe not.
But as a temporary onsite facility it is an economical and non polluting way to blast and paint.
- Will it prevent blasting dust from polluting the worksite and surrounding areas? Yes, most definitely.
- Will it prevent paint overspray pollution and damage to surrounding property? Yes it will.
- Will it allow grit to be recycled and reused? Yes, it certainly will. And that will save a fortune in wasted abrasives.
Blasting and painting, and making facilities to do it in, is in our blood. We would love to hear from, and work with, you to make a Porta-Blast system for your requirement.