Help with Humidity

[Massrokit]

Due to a lost of some charts, could someone point me to or give good recommendations to when to paint at what humidity level? For enamal? for arcylic? Raffle can and airbrush. Thanks

 

[Pantherjon]

IIRC the humidity should be below 70%..I looked on some rattle cans, I thought they had a humidity level stated, but don't..All the recommendations for the paints just list a temperature range of 65-90 degrees F..

 

[Pem Tech]

Well heck....

From the name of this thread it sounded like you needed help aquiring some humidity. Shoot, I was gonna ship you all your could use!
Sending you just 10% of current conditions would leave us with a paltry 89%.

 

[MarkII]

Geez, Layne - how would the blankets of mold be able to stay all healthy and luxuriant at that level?

Jon's information is what I remember reading, too. One thing that I learned while painting some rockets outdoors last year was that humidity levels can vary quite a bit in a small local area. For instance, if you have a grassy lawn, or an extensive bed of shrubbery or plantings, you really don't want to do your spray painting while you are standing on your lawn or near your shrubs. You will find drier conditions if you go over to your driveway (assuming that it has dried from any recent rain) or out to the street to spray that coat of paint onto your model. Going to a larger paved area, like a parking lot, is even better. The idea is that where there is a lot of vegetation, there is more humidity, because the plants and the millions of little beasties that live among them, as living things, release or exhale water vapor continuously. Blades of grass and little bugs may seem to be too small to really affect local conditions by very much, but when there is a concentration of hundreds of thousands of them, such as in a patch of lawn, they make a real difference, especially for the first few feet above the ground. And if there is a body of water nearby, such as a pond or a swimming pool, it will send the humidity level soaring in the area right around it.

Gravel driveways can actually be quite moist, too; the gravel actually helps to retain moisture. And if you are near a freshly plowed field or any place where there has been some digging, forget it. Any time the topsoil is broken or turned over, it releases tons of moisture into the air.

For similar reasons, spray painting at the beach is probably not a good idea, either.

MarkII

 

[MarkH]

I was spraying a kit with some Krylon acrylic clear coat a few days ago in between spurts of rain. I brought the rocket in the house, only to watch the gloss finish cloud up as it dried. For humidity the can says <85 % and it was probably like 90% humidity out at the time. I was a little steamed, but I let the model dry for a day and used some car polish to wax the haze off. Now it's really shiny

 

[Pem Tech]

I was spraying a kit with some Krylon acrylic clear coat a few days ago in between spurts of rain. I brought the rocket in the house, only to watch the gloss finish cloud up as it dried. For humidity the can says <85 % and it was probably like 90% humidity out at the time. I was a little steamed, but I let the model dry for a day and used some car polish to wax the haze off. Now it's really shiny

Our Mold does quite well no matter what the conditions...
Sadly enough.

ANd as far as the clouding clear coat, the same happened to me this weekend. It has rained every day for the last two weeks, and we are at the saturation point. With NSL closing in I have got to get a couple of my model painted and clear coated, one being the LPR version of the HMAS Bonestell. Well it was all painted, with decals and pinstripes just begging for clear coat. So, I gave it what it wanted...
Only to watch the clear turn milky and dull...
I feel your pain...


Now, will a good coat of clear over that mess make it shiney or will I need to go the polish route?

 

[MarkH]

Now, will a good coat of clear over that mess make it shiney or will I need to go the polish route?

I'm not sure. I was going to re-spray with clear but decided I'd try to rub it out first. I figured if I painted gloss over a cloudy finish and it didn't work I'd be stuck.

 

[MarkII]

...
Now, will a good coat of clear over that mess make it shiney or will I need to go the polish route?

Well, speaking as a person of Polish descent, I would say that you can't go wrong with Polish (or polish).

MarkII

 

[Pem Tech]

Well, speaking as a person of Polish descent, I would say that you can't go wrong with Polish (or polish).

MarkII

Polish, polish or polka dot, I don' care, the Future worked! A couple of coats and it has a semi-passible gloss finish. Takes some getting use to as well, got runs all in the first try. Anybody have any tips on using Future?

 

[Reed Goodwin]

I would recommend using Future over a clear coat. After noticing that the finish on my rockets was easily marred (granted, they were airbrushed so the color coat was thin) even though I had some Future on there, I did some testing. The Future seems to be much better at providing a shine and not so good at protection. As such, a good clear coat is nice for protection and then some Future for that awesome shine if you're not satisfied with the clear coat finish.
Reed

 

[Pippen]

Because we're dealing with 4-H fair projects, painting is always done in the summer and the humidity is almost always above recommended conditions. Of course we avoid painting in the rain and mist and try to avoid 95% and up, there's been times when painting has had to happen in those conditions too.

We've had better results with Rustoleum and run the rocket into the air conditioned basement immediately after painting. Most of the time the hazy spots dry fine but occasionally someone's needed to take a little Turtle Wax polish to rub it out.

 

[MarkII]

Because we're dealing with 4-H fair projects, painting is always done in the summer...

When else would you be able to paint? Both Krylon and Rustoleum advise you to apply their spray paints when the air and surface temperature is between 50° F and 90° F. In my experience, though, you really need it to be about 70° F or above to avoid the risk of runs. Dupli-Color (as usual) provides a more realistic temperature range for application of 68° F to 92° F, which is right on the money for spray paint.

We've had better results with Rustoleum and run the rocket into the air conditioned basement immediately after painting. Most of the time the hazy spots dry fine but occasionally someone's needed to take a little Turtle Wax polish to rub it out.

I would think that the cold air from the AC would make the paint run. No?

MarkII