When a robot changed paint color, the system would spray excess pigment into a hopper. Paint built up in this hopper, causing paint to back up and leak onto the spray arm. At the same time, overspray caked on the straps that grounded cars during the electrostatic spray sequence, causing sparks to jump off the car and start fires on the paint that had backed onto the spray arm. Fire would then travel up the arm until it hit the mist of paint, turning the sprayer into a flamethrower. “Literally it’s a torch fucking flying around, the paint spraying, the paint’s on fire, scorching the car,” one
...more
