I live in a small apartment. Can’t afford an airbrush so I have to use rattle cans for painting large areas. My question is, with winter weather here, and daytime highs in the 30s, what I have been doing is taking my airplane outside, spraying it, covering it with a cardboard box for 5-10 minutes to let the worst of the fumes dissipate, then bringing it inside to finish drying.
I’m just concerned that even this brief exposure to the cold could create problems with the finish down the line, wrinkling or something like that. Anyone else had to deal with this?
I’m not sure what the “Best” way to do it is but I’ve always had concerns about taking parts from a relatively warm area to a cold area to paint them (or from a cool area to a very hot area). I could be wrong but I feel that condensation is very likely to form on the parts leaving a thin layer of moisture between the paint and the surface.
I think I’d leave the parts out in the cold for a few minutes to let any condensed moisture evaporate before painting them.
A lot of years ago, I helped a friend who was having this problem build a quick install window fan to suck the fumes out of his modeling area. (He and his wife lived in a small apartment and had a new born baby and his wife rightly worried about the fumes effect on the baby). He had scrounged a couple of multibladed cooling fans about 8" in diameter somewhere. We cut a 1 x 12 to fit in the window and cut holes for the fans, wired the fans in series, added a switch at one end of the board and a cord and plug to the whole thing. When he wanted to model, he would open the window, open the storm window on the outside, place the fan unit in the window, close the window, plug the unit in and turn it on. When he was finished modeling for the evening, he would reverse the process. We eventually added a 1x 12 shelf at the window ledge so he could leave the freshly painted model in front of the fans until the chemical smell went away. Worked rather well.
Paint and cold weather don’t mix well together, need to have an exhaust fan pull fumes out of your apartment or wait for warm weather. I live in an apartmrnt and that’s what I do
This is my solution. My long suffering, but very understanding, wife allows me to move the spray booth into the kitchen for the winter months. I normally keep it outside on the roofed part of my deck. I’ve put a piece of MDO board with a vent cut into it and put that in the window. The yellow hose is my connection for the compressor, which is also outside. I spray in blissfull quiet, in complete comfort and warmth, with snack just a few feet away.
If you have to deal with rattle cans, I have no solution other than to advise you to save up for an AB.
I paint the same way you do, but I usually don’t leave mine outside (cats, bugs, dogs) I have only once had a problem and that was in the summer when it was extremly humid, the paint fogged as soon as I walked in the house. I have an A/B on the way, now I just got to make a booth and figure out how I can have the window open while I spray and not freeze myself?
I would warm the paint and kit indoors, take it out as you said and paint it and bring it back into the house.
Paint flows better and adheres better to a warm surface than a cold one.
I don’t think leaving it outside to adjust to the temperature is going to produce good results.
Cold paint flows terribly and you will have more problems than the way you menioned.
