With winter digging in it’s claws for the long haul here, I was wondering about winter airbrushing. Since I dont have a spraybooth, I have to airbrush in my garage. It is unattached, and unheated. I paint with mostly acrylics. I don’t know exactly how the cold will affect the painting, and the paint job, and I don’t want to ruin a paint job because of the cold. Basically I need to know how cold it can get before I should just not bother to even try airbrushing.
Spraying gloss colors in the cold can be tough but the flat colors don’t seem as badly affected. I am in the same predicament as you although you have MUCH colder weather up in the Great White North than we do here in Northern California.
I like to have a 100 watt lamp or bigger and put it close to the paint, model and airbrush to try and warm them up a bit.
If you get them warm you can usually paint, and then take the model into the warm house to dry. I don’t know how cold you can get away with this up in Canada but I would imagine when it got below 30 degrees in the garage it would be tough to paint. Not to mention that it is hard to control an airbrush with frozen fingers. [:D]
Mike
One or two small (and reasonably priced) ceramic heaters will go a long way to hep you out Matt. Even if you just hang a couple of old sheets ortarps to enclose a corner of the garage and use these little heaters, you’ll have a fairly warm space to work in. Be careful with them though, don’t spray with the heaters running and keep the sheets or tarps a ways away from them. Heat your area before painting.