food dehydrators

Years ago (back when it was quarterly) FSM had an article on building a drying box. It was built out of 1/4 in ply wood, lined with tinfoil and contained a 100 watt bulb. It was supposed to be used to dry oil painted figures overnight.
I've personnaly never had any luck trying to force dry a complete model (without damaging it somewhat) but for small parts (props, wheels, canopie frames etc that may require immediat handleing or re painting), I've found that an old hair dryer works great. (Word of caution here, wives tend to get real unhappy after washing their hair and not being able to find their dryer. So to maintain harmony in the marriage, I would suggest that you buy her a new one and then snag the old one for yourself) Use a lower heat setting and don't get the paint too hot cause it will bubble the paint if you do.

Huh! And to think, all this time I've been dehydrating garlic, mushrooms, onion, celery and making jerky!!!
What a waste!!!! LOL

Randie

I use white glue for my canopies. My dehydrator works great. It gets inside closed canopies and drys that stuff up solid in minutes. It beats waiting a few hours.

Anyone else out there have success using these dehydrators for acrylics?

Tried it before....was good

I used teriaki to maranade the model in first...wasn't dry at all! :P

How about the light for a incubator (for chickens and such) from a farm supply?
Worked pretty good on our farm equipment, of course we didn't worry about melting the John Deere.

Instead of getting a dehydrator, go to walmart and pick up a jug of dessicant. House painters use it in a room to suck out all the humidity, it's a cyrstalline substance, a small bowl of it in a rubbermaid tub with the lid shut would work as well or better than a dehydrator. I used to paint apartments for a living, the stuff works very well. If a person was really crafty, they could rig a lightbulb like Keyworth mentioned. For that matter Keyworth, pick up a bucket of this stuff and try adding it to yer contraption.

madda

Yer ago, before I got married, I used a microwave oven. Mind you if you do use the very lowest settings at first for the fear of blistering the surface. And take care of the more combustable types such as enamles. As it dries you can progress to higher settings. Not recomended if you have detailed with bare metal foils for obvious reasons

Mkish, I don't know about he light bulb idea with a spray booth. I have my homemade booth (see another thread on the forum) with an incandescent light source, but only for illumination and not for drying. My work area in my booth is about 4 feet wide and I just didn't want to enclose the whole thing. I have two sides and a half-lid to prevent overspray in the workroom, but that's it. It's not enclosed. I have enough area to support extra pieces of gear like a drier and my airbrush compressor setup, along with a few other goodies. If anyone has tried that, I'd like to hear how it works, or possibly doesn't work, for them. - Ed

I have used my dehydrator a few times and it has worked very well.I find that it works best with acrylics.It seems that on metal kits (ie 1/43 cars) it works the best.I have found that with gloss enamels if I "cook" the model for 2 hours and let it cool down I can apply several thin coats over 12 hours-rather than waiting 48 hours .I have also found that thick gloss coats never seem to dry very quickly-I "cook" them for 3-4 hours,but then wait 1 week to polish-I have found that paint finishes that have been dehydrated seem to be very hard to remove with paint removers-so the time you save on painting can soon get eaten up if you screw up the paint job-happens to me all the time !!! By the way you can get the dehydrators from QVC if you cant find one.

Keyworth,
Do you think a person could use their spray booth in the same way? Install a 100W light bulb for some heat and just seal off the front (with some vent holes to allow air to enter.)? Would it work the same?

M.

I tried it once. Didn't work out very well. I have a homemade option that works extremely well. Got an old overhead projector base with functional fan and took off the glass top. I then took a Rubbermaid plastic storage box with the vented handle, bolted and sealed it in place and also added aluminum strips on each side for clipping parts in place to dry. I put a 100 watt light bulb in place, open the vent handle and away we go. Metal paint finishes, like Testors silver or aluminum, dry in less than 36 hours. Most paint jobs dry in less than 8-10 hours . Decal jobs dry in an incredibly short time. My wife was sold on the miniproject when my kid dropped a homework assignment in a puddle and soaked it through. I dropped it in the drier and it came out fine in an hour! Works for me anyway. - Ed

Hate to be the one to spoil your fun. I actually tried it once. I had a model I needed to finish fast. I painted it with gloss black and you know how long that takes to fully dry. After six hours I took it out and it looked great. When I started handeling it I was leaving marks all over it. The paint was dry on the surface but not underneath. The dehydrator works by removing humidity making it very dry. Thick gloss paint will dry on top but will not cure at the lower levels. I had to strip off the black and didn't get the VF-4 Black Bunny finished in time.

Have heard lots about it as well and apparently they work VERY well. You have to watch the temp. inside them though because they can melt plastic fairly easily. When used right, they can reduce the cure time of some enamels down to several hours (so I've heard).

I'd like to get one too, but it's not in the 'budget' right now...

M.

there was an article in fsm bout it. if they published it it must work

i think it will owkr

Never tried it... but I have a food dehydrator in the garage somewhere... and I will HAVE to try it on some sample parts!!!!