Curing Paint / Warming the Paint Room

[tlmartin84]

I have been debating on this for a bit, and would like some input.

I want to add some additional heat to my paint room. I had planned on adding a few infared overhead heaters to flip on after I am done painting and to help with snow melt from my tractor in the winter.

I was painting in a small room the other day and was using a single 500W halogen lamp to look for imperfections on the wall. It didn't take long until I was peeling off some clothing from the heat.

This got me to thinking maybe I should use these and I could benefit from the added light during painting as well. They would be positionable and wattages would exceed or be equivalent to any type of infared or electric heaters.

Thoughts?

 

[sberry]

Its going to need to clear well, I use them for light in mine.

 

[ScottsGT]

Keep in mind of the fumes if you are painting with solvent based paints and electrical connections that can/may arc.

 

[tlmartin84]

sberry, your setup is not quite as contained as mine. It is a 14w x 24L x 9'H room, but based on your experience with them, do you think 8 - of the 500W units would produce much heat or aid in curing?

Or am I wasting my time?

 

[countryroad82]

I used to use floodlights to hurry the cure times on small parts. It worked well for it being a low buck approach but they had to be within a fairly close proximity and you really had to watch plastic parts due to warpage but nontheless it worked. I finally ponied up last year and bought one infrared light. I wish I bought one sooner! It is well worth the money and has sped my painting and drying times up by a lot. If you spray bc/cc you know the drill on averages.


Sealer 30-45 minute dry time. Basecoat 15-20 minutes each coat (with at least 2 coats). Clear, I use fast dry clear most of the time due to mainly doing collision work it has a flash time of 5-10 minutes each coat. Air dry cure times are around 2 hours.

With my infrared light it is as follows. Sealer 15 minutes. Basecoat 5-10 minutes depending on the size of the panel each coat. Clear is pretty much dead on 5 minutes. I can be ready to start sanding and polishing at 30 minutes.

So taking the larger end of the numbers I come up with 2.5 hours of time I save myself from start to finished and ready for color sanding. 2.5 hours might not sound like much to some but in my world it is everything between sitting on your hands watching paint dry and getting **** done so you can roll the next vehicle in.

 

[tlmartin84]

What type of infared did you buy? any links?

 

[countryroad82]

http://infratech-usa.com/automotive/products/medium-wave-systems/model-sru-1615/

I just got the 'cheap' one for now to give in and try it out. I forgot to mention it can be used to cure anything really, as I've also used it to cure filler, epoxies, and the like.

 

[tlmartin84]

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200395479_200395479

I was debating on 4 of these.......

 

[countryroad82]

That would work to a certain extent, but be careful about using it to totally cure paint as you could get solvent pop issues if the top layer dries faster than the bottom. The infrared light I use heats the panel, not the surface, therefore allows it to cure from the inside out. But anything is better than nothing especially when it comes to speeding up cure times with paint!!

 

[Iron-Iceberg]

Don't forget to warm your paint too. It flows a lot better

 

[sberry]

Yes, my building is cold and not really ideal for production body work ad it doesn't matter much how fast stuff dries. I am using Industrial Imron on some and it takes a day just to handle in here. I vent and vent and finish at the end when no one is n the building and change the air out first thing. 8 of those lamps is 4Kwatts, its quite a bit of heat but country has the right idea and copes with this daily.