Two Truflow full downdraft spray booths with bake, each close to 30 metres long, run as separate zones or opened into one continuous space. Burton, South Australia
Burton, South Australia
The workshop
Northeast Paint & Panel sits on Port Wakefield Road in Burton, inside Northeast Auto Group’s one-stop truck site. The shop handles crash repairs, full resprays, dual-steer conversions, protective coatings, and insurance work on trucks, buses, caravans, and light vehicles, with free pickup and delivery across Adelaide.
When Joe, Tony and Rocco wanted a solution for the paint shop, they knew it needed a specialist supplier. “That mix is the production problem” A cab door and a prime mover do not belong in the same booth cycle. A single fixed booth either sits empty on small work or cannot take a long vehicle. Two separate booths solve the size problem and an innovative Truflow solution solves the production mix problem. The Combo Booths designed by Truflow gave us the ability to either Spray a prime mover or trailer in the 18m section of the booth while still spraying parts ( of a different colour) in the 7mt zone of the same spray booth. Both areas individually controlled and separated by a roller door. When the integrated roller door is open the booth is transformed from a 7m & 18m zone into a single 27m long spray booth. Allowing for full size trailer or even specialist structural componets for defence to be painted.
In early January 2026 the shop with new paint booths was ready for another year. With the unique ability in SA to paint just about anything with quality work & on time.
The installation
Truflow supplied and installed two 27m Australian-made full downdraft spray booths with direct gas-fired baking, engineered so the pair can run as two independent zones or open into one large spray space (Effectively providing 6 x Spray Booth operational spaces for flexibity). A central large mixing room was also critical to this installation.
Each booth is a full downdraft: filtered supply air through the roof plenum, overspray pulled down and away from the panel rather than across it. That is the airflow pattern allows for a for a clean automotive finish. Insulated panel construction, engineering AHU system and highy specialised automatic controls for this unique application it’s the only booth of its size and kind in SA. Offering bake to 70°C. The booths are built to AS/NZS 4114:2020 and of course come with the trademark Truflow quality finish.
The production feature of the split system ensure each zone has its own own spray and bake cycle, so a parts job and a cab can run at the same time without sharing air or waiting on each other’s cure. Open, the dividing roller and the two booths become one long space for a rigid, a body, or an oversized repair that will not fit a standard cabin. Imagine having two of these 27mt split booths side by side! What an advantage.
What that does to throughput
The gain is not a faster gun. It is fewer conflicts between job size and booth time.
- Two zones mean a small repair does not occupy the only booth while a truck waits outside.
- Bake in each zone means a panel can cure while the other zone is still in spray or flash, instead of the whole shop waiting on one oven cycle.
- Opening the pair into one space means oversized work stays in a filtered, heated cabin instead of being masked in the workshop or sent out.
- Full downdraft keeps overspray off the surface that has just been coated, which matters on large vertical truck panels where a cross-draft would carry paint across the job.
- Gas bake to a controlled temperature shortens cure compared with air-dry and gives the painter a repeatable window back to assembly.
For a truck shop that also does dual-steer, fleet colour, and accident blend, the same plant covers the Tuesday door skin and the Friday rigid without a second building.
Install and handover
Truflow manufactures in Australia and commissions with its own electricians, installers, and gas technicians, then backs the booth with service. On this job the brief was a working pair of booths, not a kit left for the shop to finish. The booths were set out to the Burton floor plan, plant positioned so the two cabins can be divided or joined, and the controls left so painters can run spray and bake as easily as any conventional control system.
Result
Northeast Paint & Panel now has a paint plant that matches the work already coming through Burton: light repairs and crash panels in one zone, a second job in bake next door, and the full length available when a truck body will not fit a single cabin. Finish quality sits on full downdraft airflow and a controlled bake. The install was delivered as a commissioned Truflow system, sized to the site and handed over ready to spray – Another unique TRUFLOW Australian Made system.
