Painting Water Based Dye in Cold Weather
Well that time of year is here again. The cold weather has arrived and here we go with trying to get our automotive water based dyes to dry in a reasonable amount of time.
Painting in temperatures less then 40 degrees makes it almost impossible to yield a perfect repair without a little preparation first.
The first and foremost thing is to heat up the area where the repair is being made. Now the best way to do this is with a hairdryer, not your heat gun. This will heat the area just enough to make it easier to work with and not damage the area any further (like a hole in vinyl getting larger due to to much heat being put to it). Heating the area will also help your compounds work like their supposed to along with giving you a warmer surface for the dye to stick to helping in curing time.
Here’s probably the biggest tip I can give you in helping your water based dyes to dry faster. Add a little rubbing alcohol, otherwise known as isopropyl alcohol, to your dye mixer. Now not too much, just a little squirt or two from your squeeze bottle will do. It makes a huge difference. The alcohol evaporates the water from the dye faster which in turn dries your dye faster. When buying it though make sure you get the 90% or better mixer, it’s more of a pure mixer. Here’s a link to a 99% isopropyl alcohol.
I usually start adding alcohol to my mixer at about 50 degrees or so especially if there’s a lot of moisture in the air. We have some pretty high humidity here in the mid west so when I have a blustery moist day I add a little rubbing alcohol to my dye and it cuts my drying time to almost nil. One thing too by using a hairdryer rather then a heat gun they blow harder which with the alcohol mixer, airflow is the trick. It seems like with more air blowing on the dye with the alcohol the faster it drys too.
With the prices of gas going down we can also get a little leeway on being able to run a vehicle with the heat on. If you can, run your vehicles when doing your repairs with the heat blasted. This will not only help warm the inside up but will also save the battery and blow a few of the lot rot cobweb’s that occur when some of the lot cars sit. It’s still a waste of gas but when you have a cold day and a repair is needed to be made then a warm car can improve the result immensely.
Well I hope all is well out there in your automotive world. Stay warm and make sure to keep your water based dyes warm too. Frozen dyes are ruined dyes.
Talk to you soon,
Mike “TIG”
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