So, i painted some extra parts i had this weekend in my home made "booth" in my garage and i was really pleased with the results. I'm going to attempt the whole car now. My question is related to drying/curing and air temps. I plan on painting this car next week or week after, so far the temps are holding steady in the mid 70s for most of the day but they do drop at night to mid 50s. Would it be a good idea to introduce some heat in my detached garage when the temperatures drop in the evenings? I have 2 kerosene heaters i can place in the garage with the car and the car parts while they are drying (obviously wont be in the garage during painting). I wasn' sure if this could potentially cause a reaction of some kind with the paint on the car by basically introducing fumes in to the garage. Any DIY'ers try this or any tips from the pros?

 

What kind of paint and how will your booth be set up? I see no problem with the heater, unless its like the ones like a jet engine. indirect heat will be ideal

 

The paint is PPG base / clear (i forget which one specifically, not their cheapest one and not the most expensive one). For my "booth", i have a fan bringing in air from outside in one window, across the area i'm painting, and then i have 2 fans under the garage door with filters for pulling the overspray out of the garage area. the walls are lined with plastic (mainly to cover my tools and cabinets and stuff) and then i lightly wet the floor to keep dust down. Definitely not a torpedo heater, i have 2 kero heaters like this.

 

I did mine in the conditions you speak of and didn't use the night heater and it came out nice.

 

heck yeah it did. Was this a base/clear job? What temperature range hardener did you use?

 

Yes, 3 stage. I just went to the paint store and told them I was doing it in my non heated garage, give me what I need, lol.
My guns and compressor was stolen, so when I did the diffuser and skirts on this, I did the same and asked them to load it into rattle cans. The clear had hardener capsule that I added before shooting.

 

I'm not mad at the results, not for my first full vehicle paint job.

 

Nice, congratulations.

 

you guys have photos of your booth setups? I'm trying to create my own but have a very small garage. With limited space and resources do you guys advise using a spray gun or spray paint cans?

 

I have some pictures of my painting space in my build thread, i definitely woulndt call it a booth. How much are you painting? If you're only doing small pieces, you can get pretty good results with a spray can, but you'll most likely use a lot of cans.

 

I didn't take pictures of the "booth". I just stapled up plastic drop cloth from Home Depot. I also wet the floor to prevent dust kick up.
If you have power available and an adequate compressor with water separator, you can get by with an inexpensive gun. I've used rattle cans (loaded by auto paint store) with great results, just be sure to buy the handle/trigger to keep your finger from dying half way through. The professional rattle cans are not only the correct type of paint, they have a much better 'fan' than the ones you get at the auto parts store.
This is what I mean by handle/trigger