Topic: Paint Baking Cabinet

[cjbear11]

Greetings all! I was wondering if anyone could offer some advise in the way of a paint baking booth/cabinet.  I was reading Terry's post on painting his F4 tank via rattle can as I plan to do very soon, and he mentioned baking his tank.  This captures my interest not just in the way of my tank but also any other part I would want to bake the paint onto.  How would you go about building a paint cabinet/booth.  What kind of heating element would you use, and what temperature is optimal for baking?  I have a cabinet that will be sacraficed for this purpose, and although not huge, it is big enough for my tank to hang in (probably 2' x 3').  Advise?  Thanks!

-Cameron     

[kghost]

Well a used oven is always nice....tho I'm not sure a tank will fit.

Perhaps a metal container with UV lights?

I know eastwood and various companys sell lights to speed paint cure.

[XN]

If you have 220 in your garage its pretty easy, just find a old used electric oven on craigslist. If not you could build yourself a little oven. Most of the guys building their own ovens for powdercoating use steel construction studs covered with sheet metal and insulation inside the walls. You could use a couple of toaster oven elements to get it cooking.

I painted my engine on my VTX in my garage last winter (no heat in the garage) it was about 25* in there. I pulled the engine in the house for a couple of days to get the block up to temp and also tried to heat the garage as best I could. Painted it and then boxed it up and threw a small 1500 watt space heater in the box. It held 110*F easily on the high setting and stabilized around 90* on the low setting.

Here are some pictures.

[cjbear11]

Wow! Thanks for the help.  I didn't even think of using a box.  I had thought of using a space heater somehow, but wasn't sure how to do it.

[mkramer1121]

cardboard and hot heating elements and combustible paint fumes....

i just don't think its safe, but that's just me...carry on

[Terry in Australia]

My cabinet is just an old electric clothes dryer mate, (pre-tumble dryer, don't use one of them, ha ha!) but any cabinet will do, just shove a fan heater in there and make sure there are some vents in it, and you'll be fine.

You don't need a big element like an oven unless you intend to bake the paint on an engine, then you'll need 300 deg F or more. Cheers, Terry.