Spies Like Us

03 Apr Spies Like Us

No, no — FMU is not getting into espionage. However, we are aggressively expanding once again, with the help of some Spies. Spies Hecker, that is.

What you’re looking at there is the beginning of our next expansion. We’re converting what we once used for storage into our new paint shop. These structures you see above are the first step in cutting down our paint costs and waste, and allowing us to have literally almost every single factory color on hand, in house, ready to mix up fresh in volumes ranging from an ounce to a gallon. What you see here is a fantastic, top-tier setup put together by our newest friends over at Spies Hecker. Being in the game for over 100 years will give you a good amount of knowledge in regards to painting as a whole, so we couldn’t be more excited than when they came through the shop and absolutely loved what we were doing here. They’ve stepped in to help our body/paint shop reach the next level, and we’ll give you a hint as to what’s coming up.

For now, let’s take you through the process of what happens when you’ll need paint in a specific factory color. Bear in mind that this setup will provide us with the ability to infinitely adjust mixtures, allowing us to create custom colors with great precision that we’ll be able to produce again at a later time. For now, though, let’s stick with factory colors. First, we’ll look up the Spies Hecker color code, and head over to the lockbox which contains thousands (if not tens of thousands) of paint codes for vehicles of all makes and models. This even includes different variations of the same shade, in the event that the paint changed its forumla (even on a miniscule level) between different production dates or factories.

We’ll then be able to mix that specific shade using a whole load of primary bases. There are plenty of boxes already in the bay, but it’ll look much more striking once they’re out of the boxes and on the automated rack.

From there, we’ll be able to know exactly what goes into your shade of paint, which will be laid out on the dedicated computer system next to the paint rack. The rack itself is automated, with built-in mixers running for up to half an hour every day, making sure the paint stays mixed and even throughout. Your humble narrator is still learning how the whole process works, so bear with us while we get this system put together, as we’re learning more and more about it every day.

There are other pieces to this puzzle, too, such as the scale that’s able to measure paint parts on a terrifyingly accurate scale. It may have been developed at Fermilab to measure the weight of individual protons, we’re not too sure. We’ve also got a very efficient paint gun cleaner (to clean the shiny new paint guns we’ve picked up) that’s able to clean the guns thoroughly without wasting abundant amounts of solvent or anything else involved in the cleaning process.

Now obviously the large majority of the work still needs to be done on the construction of the area, but we wanted to give you a heads up as to what’s up and coming at the FMU HQ. Between Ron’s incredible experience with paint and body work, and this brand-spankin’-new custom mixing station from Spies Hecker, this is just another corner of our company that we’re intent on building up into something fantastic. Stay tuned for some epic stuff, folks.