NITA Panel Beating & Spray Painting Trade Test study guide
NITA Panel Beating & Spray Painting Trade Test · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The NITA Panel Beating and Spray Painting Trade Test is a Kenyan trade certification for people who repair vehicle bodies and refinish them. It is aimed at apprentices, experienced workshop hands who never sat a formal test, and technicians moving from a helper role into charge-hand work. The NITA Panel Beating & Spray Painting Trade Test study guide has 14 sections and about 4,109 words.
01Occupational Safety, Health and Environment in the Body Shop
This domain asks you to identify hazards in the body shop, choose the correct control, and show you can work without harming yourself, your workmates, the vehicle or the environment. Isocyanates in 2K paints, hardeners and clearcoats are respiratory sensitisers.
354 words, about 2 min02Hand Tools, Power Tools and Workshop Equipment
Hand tools include the body hammer, dolly, spoon, pick, body file, hand files, snips, chisel, hacksaw, trim tools and torque wrench. Power tools include the angle grinder, DA sander, die grinder, reciprocating saw, MIG welder, spot welder, plasma cutter, hydraulic ram and spray gun.
319 words, about 2 min03Vehicle Body Construction, Materials and Fasteners
Body-on-frame : a separate ladder chassis with the body on rubber isolators; common on pickups and older 4x4s. Monocoque/unibody : welded box sections carry all loads; most passenger cars.
301 words, about 2 min04Damage Assessment
Damage assessment decides what is damaged, how far the damage extends, whether to repair or replace, and what the job will cost. The exam tests systematic inspection, not guesswork.
298 words, about 1 min05Panel Alignment and Body Measurement
Panel alignment is the relationship between panels: gap width, flushness and parallelism, plus the structural dimensions underneath. If the body shell is wrong, no amount of hinge adjustment will make the door fit.
289 words, about 1 min06Panel Beating, Shrinking, Stretching and Metal Finishing
Panel beating moves metal back to shape. You need to know whether the metal is stretched (too much surface area), shrunk (too little) or simply displaced.
296 words, about 1 min07Welding, Brazing and Panel Bonding
MIG/MAG welding is the main process for steel body panels; TIG for aluminium and thin steel; resistance spot welding for factory-style joints; oxy-acetylene for brazing and heat. Brazing filler melts above 450 °C but below the parent metal; soldering melts below 450 °C.
263 words, about 1 min08Body Filler Application
Polyester body filler is the standard; finishing glaze fills pinholes and sanding scratches; fibreglass filler bridges larger gaps; aluminium-filled filler suits some bare-metal uses. Filler shapes a panel; it is not structural, and it should be thin.
283 words, about 1 min09Sanding and Surface Preparation
Surface preparation decides whether paint sticks and stays flat. Most defects blamed on paint are really preparation defects.
299 words, about 1 min10Spray Painting: Materials, Mixing, Spray Gun Setup and Application
Primers, sealers, basecoats and clearcoats come as 1K (single-pack, air-dry) or 2K (two-pack, catalysed). Mix by volume using the manufacturer's ratio and a measuring stick; never guess.
315 words, about 2 min11Paint Defects
Every defect has a cause; sanding it out and repainting without removing the cause reproduces it. Identify the defect, the stage it appeared (primer, base or clear) and the conditions: temperature, gun setting, contamination.
295 words, about 1 min12Colour Matching and Finishing
Start with the vehicle colour code, then check for variants. Manufacturers list several variants for one code, and fading changes the original shade.
270 words, about 1 min13Trim, Glass, Accessories and Final Assembly
Use proper trim tools, not a screwdriver. Warm adhesive-backed mouldings before lifting.
268 words, about 1 min14Estimating, Job Cards, Customer Care and Workshop Records
An estimate combines labour times, paint and materials, parts, sublet and tax. Use the refinish time schedule for paint, add consumables, and note blend and adjacent panels.
259 words, about 1 min