West Australians are officially the sharpest shooting spray painters in the land following a cleansweep of the 2008 Glasurit Painter Academy Shoot-Out in West Sydney.
Neil Moneypenny of Duracraft Panel & Paint was the winner, with Mike Seddon of Nova Smash Repairs (the 2008 winner of best WA Small Shop in the AAMI/Paint&Panel Autorepairer of the Year Awards) second and Clint Davies, of Wayne Davies Smash repairs, rounding out the top three.
At a prize-giving ceremony at the Rydges, Parramatta on Saturday 11 October, Moneypenny received a $1000 travel voucher, a recognition trophy, two spray guns and a 3M Sun Gun for his winning efforts over a series of spray painting, colour matching, process application and theoretical tests.
Second and third place winners received trophies, vouchers and clothing.
All contestants scored more than 63 per cent in total marks with the winner shooting 92 per cent.
The 100 contestants initially selected were whittled down to 60 and then reduced to just l6 finalists following a series of assessments.
BASF/Glasurit Australia and New Zealand country manager Ian Wilkinson, said the tests, carried out at BASF’s Wetherill Park headquarters, west Sydney over recent months, were very competitive and the standard of all 16 finalists was encouragingly good in all areas.
The sharp shooter finalists were found among the two spray booths, prep-bays and mixing areas of the Wetherill Park site.
They were judged on five main areas:
* Basecoat blend application and colour match
* Theoretical colour match
* Product and process knowledge
* Colour matching general; and
* Process application.
Three judges - Peter Jones, Glasurit national head trainer for Australia/New Zealand, Brian Lewis, Colour Lab supervisor and Ian Johnson, Technical Services supervisor - ran the rule over all contestants.
Wilkinson was happy with the competition.
“The guys did their homework and competed in a friendly but professional way throughout the two days of work,” he said.
“The fact is that right up to the end anyone could have won.”
Most of the competitors have been in the business for between six and 25 years.
The paint used was Glasurit 55 basecoat and the clearcoat was a toss-up between High Solids or Racing Clearcoat.
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Glasurit shoot-out winners