Heating garage to paint in winter

[skyline084]

I'm going to need to re paint my car, and want to know if anyone's done this..
Use a propane heater to heat the garage ( 3 car garage), turn the heater off, then spray the car.
Only problem I'm worried about is my garage cools pretty quickly once the heater is turned off, especially because I'll need to keep some doors/windows cracked to ventilated.
So would the paint be effected badly letting the garage air out until I'm able to turn the heater back on?
I can wait till spring but than I'd have to leave the motor out .. which will be tough because I'd like to get everything situated before spring.

[ForkliftDude]

Ive done it, but I went much further than you are thinking. I also waited until the middle of summer to do it, but that was because I was trying to homebrew myself a spray booth style paint job. There are things you must "control" to get a high quality paint job. Temperature, dust, and paint thickness. Paint thickness is simply your spray technique... light thin even coats. Repeat that until you hear it when you close your eyes

How I did my paint was in a garage. I took rolls of plastic and basically made a "tent" with a very large overlap where the ends met (an air lock) and made sure there was enough room for me to get inside with the car and walk around. Next I set up my Torpedo heater (Mine is Kerosene) in the garage but outside my plastic tent. You dont want the heater in the tent because it will stir up dust. Aside from bad painting technique dust will be your #1 enemy. You want your metal above 60 degrees but below 90 when you apply the paint. After it is painted you want to raise the temperature as high as humanly possible. Commercial spray booths get between 180 and 200 degrees. Factories bake the paint as high at 500 degrees (it is debatable if the added temp simply speeds up dry times or if the rapid evaporation of the residual paint chemicals actually makes for a stronger finish)

If you are going to do it in winter I would suggest you make your tent over the car, and then put the heater inside the tent with the car. Get it up to around 70 or so and then move the heater outside the tent but still running. Do not open any doors or windows... air circulation = dust movement. Get a good quality respirator. Commercial downdraft spray booths move no air when the car is being sprayed and then moves the air very very gentally while baking. You dont need ventilation, in fact, you want it to be as air tight as possible... you DO need a good respirator. Preferably a clean air hood, but realistically a respirator is more than enough

[skyline084]

Okay, thanks for the input. I've sprayed my car before so I know how to apply paint.. just never attempted it in the winter. I use a respirator so I'll go ahead and try to set up a little paint booth.

[300ZXttZMAN]

Take pics while you do it sounds very interesting

[skyline084]

Sarcasm I presume..

[300ZXttZMAN]

Sarcasm I presume..

No man i'm not a douche, no sarcasm here.

The reason why im interested is because im curious to see the finished product also to see how you set it all up.

My buddy will be painting his 350z some time shortly.. If you have pictures I can see how your booth was setup and then how the finished product turns out.

Then ultimatley we can try to duplicate the results.. As well as the booth

(obviously there is alot more variables to a good paint job that i don't feel like listing but you get the idea )

[skyline084]

My bad man haha thought it was gonna be another typical "you can't do that" response.

I'm probably not gonna start the painting process until maybe january or so because I still have to do some welding on the frame and little body work on the fender. I'll def take a bunch of pics through out the whole process though.

Your buddy might end up doing his before mine... if that's the case, than i can duplicate your setup

[C-Kwik]

Personally, I'd probably just wait until it gets warmer. That's a whole lot of paint and prep wasted if it turns out like crap. And paint can be pretty finicky when its out of its specified range.

[skyline084]

Yeah you're right.. I'm still unsure about what I'm going to do though. Plus if i do it in the winter, I need to buy all extra supplies.. heater, some type of custom booth... so it might just be worth spending more time replacing things on the car and motor and just wait it out.

[sx moneypit]

Yeah you're right.. I'm still unsure about what I'm going to do though. Plus if i do it in the winter, I need to buy all extra supplies.. heater, some type of custom booth... so it might just be worth spending more time replacing things on the car and motor and just wait it out.

I think you are on the right track.Take care of your other things on the car first and then you won't have to worry about denting the body or scratching the paint.

[300ZXttZMAN]

My bad man haha thought it was gonna be another typical "you can't do that" response.

I'm probably not gonna start the painting process until maybe january or so because I still have to do some welding on the frame and little body work on the fender. I'll def take a bunch of pics through out the whole process though.

Your buddy might end up doing his before mine... if that's the case, than i can duplicate your setup

Its cool

What car are you painting im just curious??

[bcar240]

Just a friendly word of advice. I think you are on the right track, you do need one hell of a heater. Definitely has to be the force air propane/kerosene type. I had 4500watts of electrical heaters in my 2-car garage last year trying to get the temp up to finish some furniture and it didn't do crap (maybe 1-2° rise after running for hours). I'd suggest a at least 50,000 BTUs, probably even more to be on the safe side.

[skyline084]

Yeah you guys are probably right. I do have a propane heater which heats the garage in under ten minutes, but I don't think it would be safe to have that on while the garage is boxed with paint fumes. I was hoping to use electrical heaters to maintain temperatures but I don't know if it's worth all this trouble.. might just wait till spring.
300zx.. it's a 92 240 coupe. prob gonna paint it a nice metallic blue

[300ZXttZMAN]

^

Make sure you take before and after pics