I live in Houston Tx. and our humidity is extremely high all year round. I dont have a spray booth so ill have to paint in the garage. How will this affect the paint going on the piece? And is there anything i can do to stop any kind of problems due to the humidity factor?
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I live in Minnesota with high humidity during the summer. The biggest issue on days with high humidity is the drying time of paint. It takes almost double the time for my paint to dry when it’s super humid. Besides that I don’t really notice any other major difference.
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Ok cool, ill just bring it inside to dry.
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I have a similar situation here in Florida - high humidity and no spray booth. I use rattle cans outside the garage. I haven’t notice any effect on the painting other than a somewhat longer drying time. But we get a lot of sudden showers and storms, so some days I don’t even try painting at all.
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The humidity here in Kentucky is brutal during the late spring/Early summer. I airbrush in my garage. I purchased a small portable dehumidifier. It has a reservoir tank to collect the moisture. It has a built-in float. When the water reaches the top level, the dehumidifier automatically shuts off. It has its pros and cons. One big plus is that on a very humid day, i’ve gotten the humidity in my garage as low as 43%.
I usually turn it on about an hour before I go out airbrush. On the negative side, it will heat up the garage. I’m used to it now. I believe the company name is Comfort Air. It’s a very small unit on wheels. Runs around $200.
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Airbrushing in humid enviroments does not seem like much of a problem as here in Singapore, our air humidity levels can be up to 80% after rain yet it still does not seem to affect my airbrushing.
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When the dew point rises above your ambient air temp, this can make blushing in your finish. Particularly with hotter lacquers. It’s not so much about relative % numbers like 60% or even 80%. But say your room is 70f and dew point 75 or 80 deg.. Or the room 68 and dew point 75f This can be problematic. And lousy drying of course, in either case..
If you’re inside and running ac, it’s very unlikely your interior dew point will meet the saturation point of outdoors, or you would have condensation all over everything. Same goes for a dehumidifier, though it may not feel it, as dehumidifiers cause heat, generally warming the room.
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Interesting to see the other side of things. I live in Colorado and it’s super dry. Have the other problem of paint drying before it hits the subject! It’s not that bad, but you have to watch for it.
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Here in Panama we have at least 95% humidity every day and now we are into the rainy season. I do my painting out on the patio. I do have a table top paint booth with an exhaust fan. After I paint something, I immediately bring the piece in the house so the paint cures in a controlled climate.
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I’m in Katy outside of Houston. I’ve not really ever had a problem with the humidity impacting paint work, but I have recently added a dehumidifier to my work area.
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Ok, great. By the way im in Spring. Small world.
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I’ve not had a problem here even during our rainy season. Not sure what problem you are trying to avoid, but if it is “blushing” which is caused by water/moisture trapped undert the outer surface, that is one of the things a retarder can help prevent. I don’t think a paint booth in itself would help here? Just my two cents;)
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Greetings. I’m located in Katy (West Houston) and have been painting (both air brush and rattle cans) in my garage and my covered workshop. I haven’t had any issues with the humidity either.
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I paint in the shop while it is raining…I never noticed any major issues. I do have an exhaust fan but the make-up air is still high humidity.
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Rain is not the demarcation line of a high dew point. Rain is from the clouds, a storm, etc. But you can still have a lower dew point than air temp. And it’s a higher dew point than air temp that causes paint to fog.
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I sprayed this thinned out testers gloss red enamel plus a few drops of gloss black enamel two days ago…still not quite cured.
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That’ll probably take a week or two to cure if not close to a month, unless you put it in a dehydrator for a few hours or you have some dry heat coming your way in the weather forecast. I usually wait at least 2 weeks to a month before I do anything with it if I am using Testors enamels. I have found out the hard way a few times that I didn’t wait long enough with enamel paint.
