Hello,

I am fairly new to the cabinet making trade.
I am currently working at a high volume busy custom cabinet shop and noticed in their paint spraying process they will apply primer to both sides of a door, for example, then when it comes to final coat they will paint the back, let it dry, and then cover the back in paper and tape to protect it from any overspray when spraying the front of the door.
Is this standard practice?
This shop has a proper paint booth with a full exhaust\ventilation system.
Before joining this place, I worked at a much smaller shop, without a spray booth (just a fan installed at the back door) and we never had any over spray issues.
I’m too new to the trade to know what the difference is (maybe proper gun setup?) between the 2 shops.
Just would be good to if we can skip the covering of back panels to save time.
Anyone have any thoughts or want to share their process?

I have never had to mask off the back of my doors for overspray issues, If they're having those issues it's most likely that the door is too close to a large surface, IE they put a turntable on a normal bench/table and theres only 8 or so inches of space, this can create blowback, especially if their spray set up is using too much air.

When I was using a precat I didn't have issues with over spray on the backsides of the door after spraying the final coat on the front side.

I switched over to a post cat and I had over spray issues. Nothing else changed. I don't paper the backs, I cut a pc of cardboard and lay it under the door. When I do the final coat on the face I order the doors from large to small and usually I can get away with one or 2 pcs of cardboard on a set of kitchen doors.

The major cause of over spray on the back of the door is spraying the edges. If you only spray the topside (square edged doors only) you get no over spray on the back side.

A friend of mine works in a large cabinet shop that I visit from time to time and there finisher was putting paper on the backs of the doors and masking around the edge. I noticed when he was done and pulled the mask there was a distinct line around the edge of the door where he pulled the tape. I am not sure how or if he addressed that.
Any way they got rid of that finisher and there new finisher does not paper and mask the back of the door

nicko

I agree with Tyler, it's usually a blow back problem.
I got rid of the problem by building small towers
to get the doors up off and away from any surfaces below.
Some painters use chicken wire to lay the doors on.
Run the wire between 2x4's supported at the ends 4' above the floor.

Thanks everyone, a lot of helpful info and tips.
Much appreciated.

We’ve always used a turn table with screws standing up as legs. The table is always smaller than the doors. The spray goes down at approx 45 degrees. No real way for it to come back up. Never had any issues. I’ve never even thought about it.

Papering and masking would piss me off. I would build a machine to avoid it.