Food Dehydrators to speed up paint drying

I use a hair dryer with Future, and if you are really careful its GREAT!  I have even reactivated Future using a hair dryer to get fingerprints out. 

Instead of a food dehydrator which uses a fan and a heat source use a dehumidifier. Reduce the humidity in a space that the model is drying in and it will cure slowly and more evenly.

In the missile field (back in the day at Whiteman) I used to put my freshly washed and heavily starched fatigues in the brine chiller which was in essence a huge air conditioner used to chill water used to cool the Launch Control Capsule. If you hung your uniform in it, in just a matter of minutes it was dry having all of the moisture removed. If you stuck them in the clothes dryer, the pockets and seams never dried at the same rate. Making the liquid starch solid and all one needed to do was dress up the creases with an iron to make them sharp as well as press out any wrinkles. That done the next chore was to force your arms and legs through and try to walk. Much like you were wearing a set of middle ages armor.

I think Ive found something good with this food dehydrator. I bought a circular dehydrator by Oster at Walmart. I painted a scrap piece and left it in there overnight. No warping. dry as a bone within an hour. I mean felt cured dry.

I did this because Im making a motorcycle that requires some serious alclad chrome plating. Chrome from the box looks cheap. I started out with Alclad Gloss Black Base. I will be 200 years old before it dries on its own. I tried this out on a model months ago and its STILL STICKY!

New method. Buy rustoleum Straight to Plastic black lacquer at Home Depo. Decant into one of your spare alclad GLASS bottles or similar GLASS bottle until 2/3 full. Fill remainder with lacquer thinner also from Home Depot. Shake. Open lid for 30 mins to allow gasses to escape. Airbrush. Dries in seconds to minutes. Add dehydrator and it will cure in under an hour. Polish it a little. The Alcad sheen is truely brilliant using this method and requires no further polishing IMO. Much cheaper, much more effective.

I wanna once again thank Swanny for his great solutions to these problems. The store bought primer/household lacquer from spray can is all him.

Works great! The dehydrator makes it so I can finally move along with my models instead of having days worth of gaps in between.

I just bought an Oster Food Dehydrator. Ill let yall know how it goes. 

The reason I want it is that Im trying to chrome up a motorcycle and the Alclad Black Gloss Base takes FOREVER to dry. Even though its an Alclad product it acts and smells like enamel. So annoying. 

My painting station that I am just finishing up building, has the booth, spot for a compressor, and a "oven" which is simply a wooden box, with a door on it, heated by two incandescent lamps on a dimmer, it worked great twenty years ago when I was into modeling then, I am sure the same set up will work just as good now, and a site cheaper (maybe?) than buying a dehydrator.

Basically it is just something to give me a more controllable climate for curing the paint, simple and effective, although I am sure some would beg to differ.

Makes sense.  Thanks for the information.

MAJ Mike

Would a carefully  applied hair dryer work? 

I remember from many years ago that some folks used a cardboard box with a 100 watt light bulb as a drying booth.  So far a warm/hot South Texas garage workshop works for me.

I have tried a hair dryer but the dehydrator is definately more effective. I typically leave an item in the dehydrator for 15 min to 2 hours -- I cant see myself holding a hair drying for that long -- with the dehydrator you just pop in your part/kit and walk away. Also, Heat is secondary from my experience. The constantly circulating air inside the dehydrator is the main factor. Warming the air helps, but is not the main factor.

Would a carefully  applied hair dryer work? 

I remember from many years ago that some folks used a cardboard box with a 100 watt light bulb as a drying booth.  So far a warm/hot South Texas garage workshop works for me.

I bought one of these after reading an arcticle in FSM about using them for modeling. Now it is on my top 10 list of "how did I ever get along without this thing" items.

I have been using this technique for about 10 years. I think my is a Nesco, but I cant rembmer.  I mostly use if for speed drying my parts after washing them. In fact, I can fit a  complete 1/48 ww2 fighter  inside mine, which is great because I can wash and dry it very quickly in preperation for painting. I always use the lowest temp setting, which is more than adequate--higher temps can warp parts.  I once painted the nose of a P-51 with Testors 1110 Gloss Blue (stuff takes at least 2 days to dry normally) -- I put it in the dehydrator and it was completely dried in 2 or 3 hours -- yes completely dry -- not just dry to touch.

Mine is circular, but If I had to buy a new one, I would get a square model (just because I could fit bigger items in it).

Here are a bunch at Walmart.

http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_query=dehydrator&ic=16_0&Find=Find&search_constraint=0

I don't- not yet.  Sounds like a good idea, but do not know how good the temp control is.  I have several friends that use them- one has had some bad warpage as if it ran too hot.  May be a brand thing, but I am waiting to see what brands are okay and which to avoid.