MacDill maintenance Airmen fabricate paint rack

  • Published
  • By by Airman 1st Class Mariette Adams
  • 6th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
Metals Technology Airmen from the 6th Maintenance Squadron (MXS) fabricated a new paint rack during May at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

The new paint rack replaced an older model and was customized to fit inside MacDill's new paint booth at the aircraft structural maintenance's corrosion control facility.

After the Airmen drafted a blueprint by hand, ordered the required materials and confirmed the design with the corrosion control facility, the rack was created.

The steel rack consists of a four-legged stand with a rectangle framed roof. The roof functions like a clothing rack and can have parts hanging off the framed roof. The design creates easy access during the painting process.

"It allows corrosion control Airmen to get a 360-degree perspective around the part as it is suspended in midair," explained Staff Sgt. Armand Guting, an aircraft metals technology technician with the MXS. "It makes it so they don't have to take it down and remount it constantly."

The hanging feature on the rack allows for more than one side to be painted at once.

"The rack is necessary because it allows all sides of the part to be painted at once instead of painting one side, waiting for it to dry then repeating the process again on the other side," said Staff Sgt. Robert Dyson-Cersley, the corrosion control NCO in charge assigned to the 6th MXS.

The paint rack is now complete and will be placed in the paint booth upon the booth's scheduled completion date of August 2016.

(This article is an update to a previous article titled "Modernization: making it from scratch.")