About the Academy
A school built by a manufacturer that had to train its own applicators.
Coatings Academy is the training arm of ArmorThane, which has been making polyurea, polyurethane and spray foam systems and teaching independent applicators to apply them since 1989.
Why it exists
The material was never the hard part.
ArmorThane could ship a drum of polyurea anywhere in the world. What it could not ship was the judgement to use it — and a bad application does more damage to a product's reputation than no application at all.
So the training came first, and it has stayed deliberately practical. Not a certification mill, not a sales seminar with a gun demo at the end. A week of substrate, preparation, machine and technique, taught by people who have made every mistake they are warning you about.
The commercial arrangement has stayed deliberately simple too. There is no franchise fee and no royalty. You train, you buy material and equipment if you want it, and the business you build afterwards is entirely yours.
ArmorThane has been manufacturing protective coatings and training independent applicators since 1989.
Core modules run through every certification track, from polyurea chemistry to equipment troubleshooting.
Certification tracks: applicator, spray-on bedliner and qualified polyurea inspector.
From order to on-site training: ArmorThane aims to deliver your equipment, product and training inside 30 days.
No franchise fee and no royalty — ever. You own the business you build.
How we teach
Four things we will not compromise on.
Safety before anything else
Isocyanates, high-pressure injection and confined spaces are not theoretical risks. Nobody picks up a gun here until respiratory protection, ventilation and handling have been covered properly.
Real spray time, small classes
You cannot learn standoff, travel speed and overlap by watching. Classes are kept small enough that everybody sprays, gets critiqued, and sprays again.
Test what you sprayed
Film thickness, adhesion, holidays. We cut panels open and pull them apart, because the habit of verifying your own work is what separates an applicator from a sprayer.
Support that outlasts the class
A certificate is not much use at 6am on a job site. Graduates keep access to the technical line and to the applicator network for the questions that only come up in the field.
Where it happens
Here, or at your shop.
Most people train at the ArmorThane facility in Springfield, MO. Plenty do not — a trainer and the Mobile Coatings Unit travel out to shops, plants and municipal yards so a whole crew can learn on the equipment they will be running.
- In-house classes at the training facility
- On-site training anywhere we can reach
- Mobile Coatings Unit for live demonstration
- Online continuing education between classes
The parent company
ArmorThane
A manufacturer of spray-on protective coatings — polyurea, polyurethane and hybrid systems — used in defence, infrastructure, construction and automotive work, with an applicator network spanning the globe.
