# Spray paint remains tacky?



## Artieiii

I have been trying to repaint my rotary snow plow but the yellow paint I apply by can (rusoleum) remains tacky. I was thinking it might be because I did not shake it properly in the beginning and the last half of the can has more paint and less propellent. The can seems to be good at first now the paint just won't dry properly. My plan was to buy a new can and see how it works. Any suggestions?
-Art


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## tjcruiser

How long has it been tacky?

Are you in a humid environment? Is it cool?


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## Artieiii

tjcruiser said:


> How long has it been tacky?
> 
> Are you in a humid environment? Is it cool?


TJ,
It's been about 4 hours of tacky. It seems to be drying now. Yes it it is humid in my basement. The thing is, the grey and black paint I used dry very quickly (also in the basement) the yellow seems to take forever to dry.
-Art


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## Big Ed

Artieiii said:


> TJ,
> It's been about 4 hours of tacky. It seems to be drying now. Yes it it is humid in my basement. The thing is, the grey and black paint I used dry very quickly (also in the basement) the yellow seems to take forever to dry.
> -Art


Read the can I think it tells you, when I did the 2065 with rustoleum it was tacky for a long time. I recommend letting it sit over night. 
I sat mine in my picture window to bake in the sun.

Primer will dry quickly. 
Was the black and gray rustoleum paint?


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## gunrunnerjohn

You can also bake it in your oven on about 125F, that will hasten things along. Even putting it in the breeze of a fan will do wonders.


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## tjcruiser

I repainted a tinplate gondola car a while back ... bright yellow Krylon rattle-can paint. The yellow had thin coverage, requiring several coats, as compared to other Krylon colors.

I've read somewhere that bright yellows are generally tricky from a coverage standpoint. Perhaps paint mfrs add extra pigment / solvents in them to attempt to overcome that, with the tradeoff of extra required drying time?

TJ


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## T-Man

A hair dryer or heat gun may help. Not to be overdone.


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## goraman

then left to cure in the refrigerator (cold hardens paint).
Cold water hardens acrylic paint.


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## sstlaure

goraman said:


> then left to cure in the refrigerator (cold hardens paint).
> Cold water hardens acrylic paint.


I've never heard that.....cold makes rattle can paint take forever to harden.

Arteii - if you're layout is in the basement, you may want to think about a de-humidifier. Humidity is a bear on warping benchwork.

I got one for mine and as an added bonus it doesn't smell musty down here anymore.


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## gunrunnerjohn

Personally, when I've had slow drying paint, I've done the oven trick. It makes the biscuits taste funny that you bake later, but it sure does the trick!


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## tjcruiser

I'm not onboard with the "cold hardens paint" idea, either. It might freeze the paint, but that's not the same as drying the paint, where the solvents in the paint evaporate.

TJ


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## waltr

There is a reason the the refrigerator might help. It is that the humidity is very low in the refrigerator and that could help.

Just a theory.


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## gunrunnerjohn

The humidity in a 125F oven is a lot lower than room ambient as well, and it's a proven way to dry paint.


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## NIMT

Oh come on quit being a mamby pamby baby!
Oven 375, Insert in oven for an hour, Look all dry!
Burnt to a crisp, but all dry!
OK now back to reality...Art get away from using Kylon paints on plastic!!!
They have way too much solvent and it will literally melt the plastic and the details right off your models!
Yea I know it's worked before...All plastic is not made equal!
Kylon does make paint for plastics, don't use it either! It has a far greater ability of melting the details right off your model because of the bonding agents, IE, solvents!
Watch our for the advice given my O gauge guys, they mean well but there plastic is a lot thicker and the rest of the bunch are used to dealing with tin! They get the lucky job of painting up their steel monsters!
If only HO had the luxury of being steel, I jealous! Yea we have brass, but really who can afford that stuff!


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## gunrunnerjohn

What paint do you recommend for your modeling.


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## NIMT

OK john now you've done it! Me let out my million dollar paint secrets?
Oh I do have about 80 some gallons of model paints. 50% acrylics and 50% enamels.
It's a combination brought on by buying up a bunch of little bottles of acrylics from a Crafts Mart that went out of business, and an obsessive and rather unhealthy compulsion to buying as many colors as possible of a hobby shop's mix of paint and the inability to walk past Home Depot's oops paint section without picking up a quart or gallon of paint. 
The easiest to get and use over the counter enamel is rustoleum in the paint can not spray can. Yep that's right good old rustoleum, it needs to be thinned but you can thin it for great air brush use and a little goes a long way.
OK for those with no air brush at their disposal, and not wanting to spend a ton on paint like, Polly Scale by Floquil (excellent), Floquil (excellent), Testors (fair, spendy), Airfix (great, not bad price). 
Use cheap spray paint, It sounds counter productive but it's not. There is less pigment in the cheap paint and so there is less solvents to cut the pigments down. It might require another coat but the thinner mix will give better results. 
And please people for the love of everything good, NEVER brush paint in bulk, brushing trims are fine but no sloping the paint on the side of your box car and saying it looks great, it won't and anyone that says it does just doesn't want to hurt your feelings!
You can use acrylics on plastic, enamels are a better bet, you will just need to cover with clear coat to strengthen up the finish!
Acetone can cause plastic melting issues easier than lacquer thinner so avoid it.
Use Lacquer thinner to thin enamel paints for a faster evap and dry time.
Use denatured alcohol to speed up acrylics dry time!
And don't drink and paint! :laugh::laugh::laugh:


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## gunrunnerjohn

I knew everything but not drinking the paint!


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## goraman

Years ago I worked in a high end body shop,We even did some 1970ish Lamborghinis.
Our paint jobs started at $3,000 in 1985.
After the car came out of the heated booth we sponged it with ice water to harden the warm soft paint.
After cooling the paint job down and a good shammy to dry it off, we could then put the wheel to it for the final polish.
This link is not for painting cars but it's still cold water hardening.

http://www.ehow.com/how_10048085_harden-freshly-polished-nails.html


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## gunrunnerjohn

*goraman*, the difference here is the heated booth had thoroughly dried the paint, then the cold makes sense just to cool things off.


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## goraman

gunrunnerjohn said:


> *goraman*, the difference here is the heated booth had thoroughly dried the paint, then the cold makes sense just to cool things off.


Paint that has been thoroughly dried by heat will remain soft for over 24 hours!
When you cool it there is a shrinking and hardening that occurs.

If you read my post, it says "then cool it down" after some one recommended baking it.

If you take a fresh paint job,fully dried out of a heated booth and try to handle it or rub it out (dry as you think it may be) it will destroy all your hard work.

Cold water has been used for (cold water hardening) when painting using acrylics for years and years.


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## goraman

The guys I worked with where the last of a now lost breed.
Roger's older brother who's name I'm not sure I remember correctly Fred was well known and his paint jobs where in a show with Ed Roth. Fred was a small bald German man and he really had a mousey apprentice about him, he used to sighn all of his cars with a little hand pinstriped mouse on the driver side rocker panel because his nick name was mouse.
Ed Roth liked it and told him if your the mouse I'm the rat! and Ed Roth began drawing rats and the rest is history!
This little mouse looking guy could paint free hand letters,graffix,pin striping backwards on glass.
He could free hand pin stripe the whole front end of a car before you could Finnish a beer.
He stopped doing cars and opened a a business making custom signs. 
He taught his younger brother Roger to paint who then taught me a fraction of what he knew.
But when there was a big money hot rod to be done Fred would show up and work some magic.
Fred once did the most awesome flames with an air brush I have seen to this day.
He could paint or stripe if he was blitzed,his house was burning down ect..
when he was painting nothing else mattered to him and it just seemed to flow out from with in him as fast as he could move the paint to where he wanted it.
These guys where a different breed.


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## gunrunnerjohn

goraman said:


> Paint that has been thoroughly dried by heat will remain soft for over 24 hours!
> When you cool it there is a shrinking and hardening that occurs.
> 
> If you read my post, it says "then cool it down" after some one recommended baking it.
> 
> If you take a fresh paint job,fully dried out of a heated booth and try to handle it or rub it out (dry as you think it may be) it will destroy all your hard work.
> 
> Cold water has been used for (cold water hardening) when painting using acrylics for years and years.


Note that I was agreeing with you on the sequence of events, not disagreeing.


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## Gansett

I'm wondering why Rustoleum and not a rattle can paint designed for hobby use?

As for auto paints, whole new field of technology out there today. Old school Dupont Dulux dried by oxidation, exposure to the air. Dupont Lucite dried by solvent evaporation. Along came Centari, dried by chemical reaction caused by a additive. 

Now there's single and two stage poly utherane paints. Hard as a rock when they come out of a downdraft booth after baking. When I painted my old '86 Caddy had a beer waiting during the baking cycle, unmasked and drove her home. 

Old school enamels did seem to benefit from a cold water rinse. btw It seems for every painter he has some sort of secret.


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## goraman

I used to like Ditzier PPG, Shot through an old De Villbiss gun or an old Binks 069 but you had to move really fast with the Binks but orange peel was never a problem, a paint run well different story.

BTW I have used Rust o lium and it is the slowest curing paint a spray can has to offer.


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