The last brass engine I painted seemed to take forever to dry and I consequently handled it too soon causing a real mess. So on my current project I’m thinking about baking it. The question is how hot and for how long? The engine that didn’t dry was put under a light bulb for several hours with no apparent effect. The next choice would be my toaster oven, but its minimum setting is 200 degrees which may be too much. Any ideas out there?
Seems a bit long. What kind of paint did you use? I would wait a good 24 hours before handling a new paint job. You could also consider using some alcohol as thinner to reduce drying time.
tpatrick,
What type of paint are you using? Acrylic, enamel or something else?
Cheers,
tbdanny
I use Floquil, three parts paint and one part diosol. The problem engine sat for two days before I touched it, but even then it was tacky to the touch. Sometime soon I’ll strip it and do it over. The nice thing about painting is you can always get a Mulligan.
It sounds like you used some old Scalecoat paint, that stuff could take a couple of weeks or more to dry. If there is no plastic on the model you can bake it in a regular oven at 200 degrees (in the middle rack) for an hour or two. I wouldn’t use a toaster oven, it would be easy to scorch the paint because the heating coils are too close. I would recommend you get an oven thermometer at your local grocery store and if you can’t maintain 200 degrees, keep the door cracked.
As an alternative, build your own oven as per the link in my signature. With it you can bake just about anything, plastic engines at 125 degrees or brass at 175 degrees (the max of the oven) for 3 hours (for Scalecoat paint).
I also use my oven to speed up the decaling process.
Do yourself a gigantic favor and keep the toaster oven for your pop-tarts. If you don’t know how to bake a paint job you’ll do more harm then good. Sounds to me like a bad batch of paint. Believe it or not it happens more often then you think. I had some Floquil grimy black that would not dry I left it on a tender for over a week. I’ve also had it happen on bike paint jobs as well using top quality paint. I would suggest always including a test piece in with your model when ever you paint. Always good to have a similar piece of material that your subject is made of but not critical if you don’t have a spare piece of brass for example hanging around.If it doesn’t dry on plastic brass sure as heck ain’t gonna make a difference.I would give scale coat a call and see if they make a fast drying reducer. When painting the longer the paint takes to dry the more it “flows” resulting in a smoother job then if it drys fast. Hence the difference between primers and top coats you want primer to dry fast to give you a better coat for adhesion and not gloss.
I’ve seen brass locomotives painted both ways and there is virtually no way to tell the difference between a baked job and a solvent cured finish. The reason they used to always baked a paint job was to cure the paint ensuring good adhesion to the surface. With the solvents they have today I personally don’t feel they are necessary.
Following up with what Jay said. If it’s Scale Coat I (for metal and wood) you’ll need to bake it. Scale Coat II (plastic) doesn’t need to be baked… although there as some who do.
A recent tip that was passed to me be a member of another forum who goes by the handle of SPSHASTAROUTE said to place it in the attic or a sealed up car in the sun. I haven’t tried it yet but it beats putting in a place where you cook your food
ratled
Rule #1 NO toaster oven!!
Rule #2 NO cold soldered brass of any kind, and that means that about 99.9% of all Korean brass is off limits to baking, unless you want to see what it looks like in a heap…
Use your regular kitchen oven with the temp set to the lowest setting, usually about 150 degrees, place it in the “middle” of the oven and leave the door cracked open in that first notch otherwise the heat will just build and build until things start to fall off.
The only brass that is really safe to bake is most any of the older Japanese brass but even so you should check it about every 15 minutes or so just as a precaution, better safe than sorry.
Normal baking time is about 1 1/2 hours.
I always used an old cookie sheet the wife sent to the trash, big enough to hold all of the parts including the tender.
When it’s done just turn off the oven and let it cool down “in” the oven, when you can remove it “without” having to use oven mits take it out and let it sit overnight so the paint will “cure”…
That’s about it…Mark
I bake all-metal models, or parts thereof, if I’m too impatient to wait several days between paint applications While paint will dry (I prefer petroleum-based paints for metal) within hours, it isn’t completely cured (can still smell the solvent). I want the paint cured before applying a different color as in from primer to finish coat, if I’m going to apply masking tape for further painting, or applying decals.
I set the oven to 170 degrees, my lowest setting. After some minutes, I turn the heat off, keeping the painted object in the oven. After half an hour, I turn the oven on again and repeat the process several times. This may be super cautious, but it has kept me out of trouble.
Mark
Kind of off topic, but I painted a 1/25 scale Willys delivery model with Testors spray can silver back in the 1970’s, and it’s STILL not dry[(-D]
I tried maybe 30+ years ago putting painted models in the oven to dry. It worked pretty well, back then ovens had pilot lights and I found the heat from the pilot flame was enough to keep the oven warm and dry so paint drying was speeded up (especially on a humid day) but it wasn’t too hot, so even plastic models could go in there safely…well, until my Mom decided to cook something and turned the oven up to 350F to pre-heat without looking to see there was a plastic refrigerator car in there.
[#oops]
I’ve painted this engine with a primer
and I had it in the oven at 80°C for half an hour.
Wolfgang