So having to wait days in the winter for each layer of airbrushed paint to dry in my 68dgs room was starting to make projects really drag on and on and on. So I wanted something cheap that would bake the paint on quick.
This is what I came up with. This is cut out of 1" foam board pink insulation from Home depot/lowes. I glued it together with epoxy 5 min. But I coudl have just as easily used loctite powergrab. That stuff works pretty decent too. As suggested I punched a few small 1/4 holes to make sure it wasn’t a totally sealed environment and that the paint vapors could escape. So far so good, paint cures exceptionally fast. The flat paints seem to cure in just about 15-20 mins, and the high glosses a bit longer(depending on how thick the coat is of course), but still not as bad as waiting days.
This thing is pretty big, about the size of a mini-fridge. If your just doing aircraft or other models you could make something prolly half it’s size. I wanted this to accomodate sculpture I make as well. I also think the larger size allows for the vapors to have more room to release into, but that might just be wishful thinking [;)]
It’s kinda funny that I have a paint drying booth before I have a paint spraying booth, but that is next.
Well 51 views and no replies lol… i think i’ll just let everyone know that this setup is working very suprisingly well. I am actually only using a 40 watt light bulb and it will quickly climb the temp in that box to high 70’s, then 80’s (in about 15 mins)then 90’s(20-30mins) and even up to 100 if I let the light stay on contuously. I even have a few vent holes to disperse any escaping laquer fumes and to avoid hot spots in it. I constructed this foam box with simple 5 min epoxy so it was actually very simple to put together. Since using this i’m less likely to get crap settling into my paint jobs and seems like I get better adhesion.
I’d be curious what others use as I sorta made this up.
Thanks Avadon for sharing your system with us. I am just finishing up the exhaust system for my new spray booth and will put you design on the do list. Looks and sounds very practical.
I think your right if I was mostly doing aircraft i’d take light off, patch it up and put the lide on the side and the have the door open like a garage door. Still, it’s something I could do. But i made it a large upright rectangle so I could airbrush sculpture/figures (which tend to be tall and upright). Even still as it is I think I can fit most 1/32 scale aircraft sitting in the bottom. But I hear what your saying. Necessity will be the judge of which way up I’ll end up keeping it.
