You can’t accuse the management and staff of Mascarin Collision Centre of being behind the times. Located at 610 Harold Crescent in Thunder Bay, ON, the facility has already completed their conversion to waterborne coatings. The facility is now using DuPont Performance Coatings Spies Hecker line of automotive paint.

It wasn’t a snap decision for the owners of the facility. In fact, the exact opposite is true. It’s something that has been in the works for a long time now. Gino Mascarin, General Manager of Mascarin Collision Centre put in the request for a waterborne conversion a little over a year ago.

Retrofit
“We knew this was coming and we wanted to make sure we were prepared in plenty of time,” says Gino. “Converting to waterborne takes a fair amount of time and effort. After we knew when the conversion would take place, we spent about six weeks retrofitting the existing system as well as purchasing and installing new equipment.”

Time considerations have always been a major factor when it comes to Mascarin Collision Centre’s paint department, mostly in the area of ensuring regular supplies of the necessary materials.

Up until fairly recently, all coatings material had to be shipped to Thunder Bay from Mississauga, a distance of nearly 1000 miles. That changed with the opening of a new NAPA/CMAX store, literally right across the street from Mascarin Collision Centre.

“We sent two of our guys to Ajax for three days of training,” says Gino. “CMAX helped out by supplying a lot of their own administration and putting in a brand new computer system. To spray waterborne you need new formulations and new paint codes.”

Team Players
Keith Tuttosi is NAPA’s Western Canada-Regional Manager, Specialty Markets-CMAX. He says the entire goal was to help make Mascarin Collision Centre’s transition, in his words, “seamless.”

“We worked with Gino and his staff extensively to make sure the conversion was as seamless as possible,” says Keith. “We also worked closely with the team at DuPont to ensure everything was going according to plan.”

Gino says that the transition has worked very well indeed, thanks to good planning, well-trained staff and an excellent support network.

“Honestly, it’s been a pretty easy transition,” says Gino. “If you’re fortunate enough to be working with good people, both on the supply end and in your facility, then it’s virtually painless.”

An easy transition is certainly a good thing to have, but it leaves one question unanswered. How do the new coatings stack up against the old?

“By two days after we had started spraying the waterborne, I was very impressed,” says Gino. “The results have been extremely satisfying.”

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