Paint temp discussion (again)

Ok boils and ghouls,

Here's the sitchyation. I have a couple quarts of Hammerite Rust Cap flat black on the way, and I would really like to get my frame painted before I head back to school. I have a large enclosed but unheated garage I can paint in. Temps have been warm lately, and they're calling for upper thirties to low 40's for at least another week.

My plan is as follows:

I will be making a small paint booth within the garage to do all my painting in. It will be up against the door so I can ventilate easily.

I'll use our torpedo heater to heat up the entire barn before getting to work. Hopefully get it nice and toasty. The directions for the Rust Cap call for between 60 and 80F.

Then I'll shut the heater off, seal up the booth and lay down a coat. Ventilate the booth and garage, fire the heater up again to keep the temp up between coats (need to wait 30-45min between each coat). I'm thinking of also getting a ceramic space heater for within the booth (again, only using after it's been ventilated - never while painting).

Paint 3-4 coats as called for by the directions, then keep it warm for ~4 hours for the initial setting. Then just let it sit (takes 72 hours to fully cure).

So two questions, really:
1) Does this seem like a valid plan? Any glaring problems I'm overlooking? I really don't feel like getting myself killed or anything.

2) Any thoughts on possible negative effects if the temp gets a little too chilly while painting, or while setting?

 

I hear ya, but with my spring as up in the air as it is... I don't trust waiting.

Oh yeah, and right now my frame is a mix between bare metal, rust, and leftover paint (very little). It's been thoroughly wirebrushed and cleaned off so it is ready for the Rust Cap (which does not require primer on bare steel and is made to paint over rust). But that's my other concern - that I may have to do a lot of prep work again if I wait till May to paint.

I wish I had a spring break to do this, but unfortunately I have to be in Atlanta smack dab in the middle of mine.

 

Sounds like a plausable plan to me. I personally would make sure the frame is the disired air temp since in theory the air closest to the frame would be the same temp as the frame and that is the air that matters when it comes to cureing.

 

Have you got some way to make a "tent" over the frame so you can blow warm air under there with your torpedo and warm up the frame directly? Like maybe a bunch of old movers blankets or a tarp? Maybe it the metal's warm it'll cure quicker.

 

the ventilation would be my concern you mentioned a torpedo heater is this a propane that has an open flame if so I wold be very concerned. If Might consider waiting. you think its ventilated and you fire up the heater and its not. YOUR TOAST literally. Just my 2 cents

 

That's why I have a resident firefighter.

That's also a big reason why I'm sealing off the paint booth area and using the torpedo to heat up the surrounding air, and not the paint booth itself. Even so I will not be running the heater while painting and will ventilate the barn seperately before firing up the heater again.

 

I would think that you could methodically pull it off. If you were doing the body and wanting a showroom finish I would say no. Frame, yes. I would heat the building for several hours or even a day before. If you have a concrete floor it will draw and retain a lot of heat. I assume the paint you are planning to use is more or less a plain old enamel or something that relys on solvent evaporation to dry, not one of the new fancy/exotic epoxys or urethanes that uses chemical cross linking/chemical reactions to dry. You probably also wouldn't want to try this in ten below zero temps. I think you have the explosion hazard covered pretty well also. Actually as soon as all the mists are gone I would safely think that it would be safe to heat up again, you can evacuate that with a fan. Some of the old paint booths 30 to 40 years ago ased a large propane heater, not really unlike a torpedo to make heat for force drying. To be a bit safer you could put a furnace filter inlet on your partitioned off area, have a fan drawing air out of the paint area and the heater in another part of the shop. You could shut the heater off when painting to be on the safe side. When ya gotta git r done, ya gotta git it done. Cam

 

Don't forget that as the paint dries, it gives off volatile fumes... You can ventilate the booth to get the fumes out, but as the paint continues to dry, it gives off more fumes and the concentration will go back up. Just something to think about...

 

Update. Just finished painting the frame (pics soon).

We just heated up the barn, shut the heaters off, threw a heavy coat, waited a bit, heaters on again, heaters off, painted again, rinse, repeat. Worked fine.

 

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