By CRM Staff
Las Vegas, Nevada — November 5, 2013 — SEMA has announced the winners of the New Products Showcase Awards held at the 2013 SEMA Show. The event recognizes the most cutting-edge automotive products either on the market or about to hit the market. This year, more than 2,000 new products were submitted for consideration in 15 different categories.
Criteria that ranked high on the judges’ selection for the New Product Showcase Awards included superiority of innovation, technical achievement, quality and workmanship, consumer appeal and marketability.
| 3M’s new Body Protection System has taken top honours in the Collision Repair category at SEMA’s New Product Awards. |
3M has taken the 2013 New Product Award in the Collision Repair & Refinish Product category with its 3M Body Protection System. Runners up are Creative Autobody Solutions’s ABS plastic spray out cards and Shelwes Tools & Body’s ShelWes Automatic Contour Sander.
3M says its new 3M Body Protection System is reinventing how repair technicians spray textured finishes found on today’s vehicles for rock protection and sound deadening. The 3M Body Protection System helps painters spray low viscosity textured finishes with fine, medium, coarse and splattered patterns.
The technology behind the 3M Body Protection System includes the 3M Accuspray HGP Spray Gun with a pressurized inlet and 3M PPS Type H/O Mini Pressure Cup, the 3M Rocker Protector Pouch, and 3M Paintable Undercoating Pouch. The 3M Rocker Protector Pouch is available in 3-ounce and 5.5-ounce sizes, and the 3M Paintable Undercoating Pouch is available in 5.5-ounce size.
The company says the 3M Body Protection System gives automotive professionals a powerful new tool for productivity, including:
• Ability to adjust pressures and spray pattern, allowing for better match to OEM textures.
• Ability to cut in half application time of textured finishes to rocker panels, wheel wells and undercarriages in many cases.
• The pressurized 3M Accuspray spray gun allows the product to be sprayed at any angle making it easier to reach lower rocker sections and inside wheel wheels.
• The painter can easily adjust the spray pattern to reduce overspray and masking.
• Painters can easily achieve a perfect texture match, which contributes to improved repair quality and higher CSI scores.
• The pouch sizes allow estimators and repair technicians to attribute exact product usage to each job, improving the job costing on estimates.
• The 3M Accuspray system reduces cleanup time and virtually eliminates the need for solvents.
“We developed the 3M Body Protection System by leveraging our proprietary 3M Accuspray technology with unique product delivery platforms, and it will revolutionize how textured finishes are applied in the future,†said Steve Widen, U.S Marketing Supervisor, 3M Automotive Aftermarket Division. “And, as the use of these textured finishes continues to expand for sound deadening on thinner substrates, the need for the 3M Body Protection System will increase.â€
For more information on the 3M Body Protection System, visit 3mcollision.com/bodyprotection.
Creative Autobody Solutions took the first runner up spot with its spray out cards constructed out of ABS. The company says its TruColor spray out cards are used to match the color of the bumper to the adjacent steel body panel. The spray out cards are composed of the same OEM quality material composition as automotive bumpers, motorcycle fairings and other ABS parts.
A statement from Creative Autobody Solutions says the cards available on today’s market are made of a thin cardboard material or metal and do not react the same way metallic paints do on plastic.The static in a ABS-plastic bumper causes the metallic particulates in metallic paints to react, and therefore create a different finish than metallic paint on a cardboard or metal spray out card.
According to Creative Autobody Solutions, the company’s spray out cards have the same characteristics as plastic bumpers, therefore the results will be a much closer match.
Shelwes Tools & Body’s ShelWes Automatic Contour Sander conforms to the shape of the car and is designed to fit on standard power sanders.
A statement from the company says the ShelWes Automatic Contour Sander conforms automatically not only to concave and convex curves, but also to any type of irregular surface. It was invented by a team of engineers, including an auto body professional with over 30 years of experience. You can see the ShelWes Automatic Contour Sander in action in the player below.
