Epoxy in the cold

E

Elwot

Promoted Users
Wanted to share an idea for those who are in colder environments. Hopefully - I sprayed the last round of epoxy on my Fairlane tonight. Before I began - I taped it all off per usual. At the last minute - I got the idea to put a small oil filled heater in the car before I began. I ran the cord out of one of the floor pan plugs. This heater made the car like a little pizza oven. With nearly every panel over 70*.

Much easier than worrying about flood lights and probably safer too. My shop is tuff to heat with my current set up. This made it a lot easier to keep every panel warm.

Also - a great big thank you to everyone on this forum. I’ve done this car all myself - entirely with SPI epoxy. 100% of the things I have learned have come from this forum.
 

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Maybe an obvious comment, but be sure the space is clear of combustible fumes. We have one where at night you can see a a dim flash from the electrical contacts when it turns on.
 
Elwot said:
Wanted to share an idea for those who are in colder environments. Hopefully - I sprayed the last round of epoxy on my Fairlane tonight. Before I began - I taped it all off per usual. At the last minute - I got the idea to put a small oil filled heater in the car before I began. I ran the cord out of one of the floor pan plugs. This heater made the car like a little pizza oven. With nearly every panel over 70*.

Much easier than worrying about flood lights and probably safer too. My shop is tuff to heat with my current set up. This made it a lot easier to keep every panel warm.

Also - a great big thank you to everyone on this forum. I’ve done this car all myself - entirely with SPI epoxy. 100% of the things I have learned have come from this forum.
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That looks like it would work very well, One step better (maybe) is to also put a small fan inside to help even out the temp top to bottom. Were you able to get heat to the fenders and hood ?
 
It's a great idea although I would be hesitant to try it. The thing that would scare me about that is getting enough of the vapor inside ( through a crack or small opening in the masking)and then BOOM! Would that happen? IDK, but it is a possibility. Probably get away with it with epoxy but I would never try it with something urethane based like base or clear. To illustrate my point, we used a wood heater based hot water radiator system in one shop. Many mornings it was a pain getting the wood going as the wood was uncovered and outside. Easiest thing was to load the heater and then use a small amount of lacquer thinner. If you poured it on and lit it right away no problem. If you poured it, shut the door and waited awhile then came back and tossed a match in there it would explode. Fire would shoot out six feet. The vapors are what is dangerous.
 
Chris_Hamilton said:
It's a great idea although I would be hesitant to try it. The thing that would scare me about that is getting enough of the vapor inside ( through a crack or small opening in the masking)and then BOOM! Would that happen? IDK, but it is a possibility. Probably get away with it with epoxy but I would never try it with something urethane based like base or clear. To illustrate my point, we used a wood heater based hot water radiator system in one shop. Many mornings it was a pain getting the wood going as the wood was uncovered and outside. Easiest thing was to load the heater and then use a small amount of lacquer thinner. If you poured it on and lit it right away no problem. If you poured it, shut the door and waited awhile then came back and tossed a match in there it would explode. Fire would shoot out six feet. The vapors are what is dangerous.
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I guess the best way would be to run the heater until the temp is good, then unplug it and do your painting, then plug it back in after the fumes are gone. Even my fan idea probably isn't the safest thing with possible trapped fumes and electric motor.
 
Whitesnake said:
And here I am shooting paint with a torpedo heater going in the winter with no issues (knock on wood) lol
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I do as well, but I do make sure the heater is off when the overspray is visible. Low risk, but the thought of losing my house and shop is enough to make me not take that sort of risk. The scariest thing I ever did was brazing shut a lower quarter panel repair immediately after spraying rubberized undercoating into the cavity. The small explosion knocked me off my seat as soon as the flame got near the gap I was wanting to close. A momentary brain fart could have killed me.
 
RenewAP said:
That looks like it would work very well, One step better (maybe) is to also put a small fan inside to help even out the temp top to bottom. Were you able to get heat to the fenders and hood ?
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I had the hood off. Car is completely stripped down with many open holes in firewall. Front fenders were the coolest but still over 65 degrees
 
Whitesnake said:
And here I am shooting paint with a torpedo heater going in the winter with no issues (knock on wood) lol
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Used a torpedo as well many many times. What my concern would be would be the concentration of vapors in a confined space. It would take a significant amount though, but there is always a chance. Gasoline is a completely different story. Never want to use a torpedo heater when working around gas vapors.
 
I've got a couple force air electric heaters in my garage. Ones hard mounted which I leave on low all the time to take the edge off. The other is a box style (7500w) hooked to a 8 gauge extension cord. I plug that into the welder outlet and place it at the back or front of the car and let it blow underneath it. Seems to work pretty well for heating panels up. Still thinking of putting a mini split in. We heat with propane and it wouldn't take much to install a small Modine heater but the cost of propane is all over the place and that's why I was looking at mini splits. I can't handle the fumes from torpedo/salamander heaters, age thing I guess.

John
 
LITJOHN said:
I've got a couple force air electric heaters in my garage. Ones hard mounted which I leave on low all the time to take the edge off. The other is a box style (7500w) hooked to a 8 gauge extension cord. I plug that into the welder outlet and place it at the back or front of the car and let it blow underneath it. Seems to work pretty well for heating panels up. Still thinking of putting a mini split in. We heat with propane and it wouldn't take much to install a small Modine heater but the cost of propane is all over the place and that's why I was looking at mini splits. I can't handle the fumes from torpedo/salamander heaters, age thing I guess.

John
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A propane torpedo heater makes my eyes start to burn after awhile.
 
Chris_Hamilton said:
Used a torpedo as well many many times. What my concern would be would be the concentration of vapors in a confined space. It would take a significant amount though, but there is always a chance. Gasoline is a completely different story. Never want to use a torpedo heater when working around gas vapors.
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I hear you. I’ve been known to be quite the risk taker but I’m not a fan of taking too many risks when it comes to gasoline or ng/propane. One of my Harley’s sprung a leak at the petcock on the tank one night. Emptied the whole tank on the floor. I opened the front door to my shop the next morning and it about took my breath away. Luckily it wasn’t in winter when the heat would’ve been on. I also had my eyebrows removed from lighting a sketchy bbq grille before lol. That stuff ain’t to be played with.
 
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