Is the weather affecting your work?

[Phil Patterson]

Its been so hot the past few weeks I haven't even bothered putting glue to plastic, it's been too sticky and hot to bother with it.

I'm happily looking forward to fall, my favorite season of the year, even more so than usual because of this. I'm just glad I haven't tried painting yet, I expect the heat and humidity play heck on paint application.

I need to get air conditioning,lol!

[Zoom Zoom]

Actually the hot weather will help me get a bit more done; I have an unfinished basement that stays pretty cool and it does have some benefit from the A/C upstairs, but it's definitely cooler in the basement where my workbench is at. I'll be there a lot over the next few weeks.

[Phil Patterson]

Ahh, I live in a fine example of premanufactured housing! No basement either....

It's not usually this bad, normally the trees give enough shade to keep things cool, but not this year.

[Tom Kren]

YES!TOO HUMIDthis past couple weekes try to paint and just fogges up .

[Fisher61]

I haven't worked on anything since mid June, I have to paint in my non-climate controlled garage and it's just been to humid since then. I think next year I'll plan what I want to build and spend some time in the spring painting bodies!

[BIGTRUCK]

When I built the big Galaxie trailer last year , I used balsa wood in long runs on the inside, after letting the walls dry for a few days , they curled from the humidity, had to start over...since that day I added 2 de-humidifiers near my build area...

[Exotics_Builder]

My old paint booth fan gave up recently and I have new unit coming. Even then, spraying in the basement caused some fumes to remain in the air for a while and my wife is quite sensitive to it.

For now, I'm working around any painting that isn't brush work. On the plus side, I've got two projects in which I haven't decided the body color yet, a Ferrari 360 Spyder and a BMW Mini Cooper S. So, it gives me a chance to think a bit more on it before committing.

But, I'll need to enclose the new unit in some way to keep the fumes contained. It wasn't a problem in our old house because of how the limited basement storage area was set up. But, the fumes seem to hang in a bit even with the fan exhausting.

[drnitrus]

I also work in the basement which gets pretty humid. Lately its been pretty tough trying to paint anything. I did a little experiment the other day though. My friend is a body guy and he told me to keep the booth warm when painting. So....I have a small fan type heater, I turned it on in the direction of my paint booth and let it warm up the area for a few minutes and it actually brought down the humidity about 10% which put me into a safer painting climate. At this point I turn on the fan to pull out the fumes but keep the heater pointing at the booth. I cleared a few parts and a body and luckily no fogging and everything came out very good.

If you can take the heat, its not that bad.

My next thing is to get a dehumidifier, but they are pretty expensive so I dont know if its worth the expense.

[Billy Kingsley]

Yup....always. Every year since I've been building I've had to stop working in the summer due to heat, and the dead of winter due to cold.

I can't stand anything over 80, and 90% of the time when it gets that hot we have humidity, too. Those are the days that I spend a lot of time on the boards.

I've tried working when it's that warm out, and the paint actually starts to congeal.

[455 Rocket]

Well I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but here in California, I'm having no troubles. I paint in my garage and due to the nice weather here in the SF Bay Area, things dry quickly with no fogging problems. About the only months I can't paint are November and Decemeber due to fog.

[Mr. Can Am Garage]

It's sure affecting my painting. No detail work but whole body paint jobs.

I had plans last Sunday and the weather was perfect with little humidity so I couldn't have painted if I'd wanted to.

This week, I was hoping to paint but there's too much freakin' humidity. Curses!

[Mike]

I'm fortunate enough to have an unfinished basement and my hobby area stays cool year round. Winter absolutely sucks as I can't keep it warm enough to lay down a decent paint job. It's usually high 50's to low 60's in the winter. I've got a space heater, but that only keeps my feet warm.

[gasman]

I don't like painting inside with lacquers anymore. so all of my painting has been done outside I'm hopefully going to get some moon mud primer on my Ferrari Superamerica today. and paint it later this week. all will be done outside on a covered porch. temps have been in the 90's all last week, and very rainy. so way to humid to paint. luckly. this week looks nice so I hope to get some painting done (for the first time since April)

[Brendan]

I live on the coast in Oregon, near the CA border. The problems we have here with the weather is the nonstop rain during the winter time. And then during the summer, we can have high humidity along with high heat and then can become very cold. It's not uncommon for the temperature to be in the 100's one day and then the next day the temperature to be in the high 50's - low 60's. It took me a long time to figure out what paints I could use and when to paint when I moved to this area. I ended up switching my paints to acrylics and automotive lacquers. They seemed to be only paints that would dry here.

My modeling workroom is set for both winters and summers with a heater and dehumidifier for those hot and cold days. And a very good homemade paint booth.