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Airblast installs blast and spray facilities for The Tank Museum.
Client
Location
Bovington, UK
Brief
Design, manufacture, and install dedicated blast and spray facilities to restore armoured vehicles.
Background
The Tank Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of tanks and the second-largest group of armoured vehicles. The Tank Museum was established in the early 1920s on the recommendation of Rudyard Kipling, esteemed novelist and author of The Jungle Book. Rudyard Kipling noticed the surplus of damaged vehicles after WW1, and upon his direction, a shed was erected to house the collection. Since then, the museum has accumulated almost 300 Armoured Fighting Vehicles from 26 countries, including; the world’s only fully operational Tiger 1 and the oldest surviving combat tank, the British Mark 1.
In early 2021, The Tank Museum reached out to Airblast to design, manufacture, and install a technically excellent spray booth and containerised blast room for processing and restoring aged military vehicles to be displayed inside the museum.
The Solution
Bovington’s main ambition for these facilities was to establish onsite processing that provided fast throughput with seamless workshop integration so that vehicles could manoeuvre in and out of the booth unimpeded.
Spray Booth
The duel spray booth and oven was installed inside a pre-existing storage shed. Standing at 10.2 metres in length, 5.95 metres in width and 4.5* metres in height, this spray booth was designed to house the world’s largest AFVs, including the Mark 1 challenger tank, one of the museum’s greatest attractions. Airblast’s spray booths set the industry standard for high-performance surface coating facilities. Our booth ensures ideal spraying conditions with little turbulence, and rapid throughput. Airblast’s spray booths are designed to exact specifications and are economical, compliant, and energy-efficient.
Blast Container
The onsite 20-foot blast container will be used to restore individual AFV components before coating, removing paint, rust, and other imperfections. In addition, the blast container we supplied to the Tank Museum was fitted with a media recovery system, integral dust extraction, and interior ATEX compliant lighting.
Once the components are blasted and the paint removed, workshop technicians recoat the AFVs with camouflage or battle colouring relevant to those that each specific vehicle participated in.
The Result
As of the 1st of March 2022, The Tank Museum can now bring processing back in-house and reap the benefits of fast throughput without the disruption of outsourcing. Airblast is delighted to support The Tank Museum with advanced surface treatment facilities and help restore the world’s largest archive of AFVs. The whole team at Airblast would like to wish the Tank Museum continued success in maintaining an important aspect of the UK’s military heritage.
