Easy steps to improve your paint processing settings

Its all in the drying

The water in waterborne wood coatings always need to vaporize completely in the drying stage. It's comparable to doing your laundry as clothes also need to dry after washing. In a room with a low temperature and high humidity, your clothes will take 2 to 3 days to dry. The same applies to waterborne wood coatings.

With easy settings and low investments, you can improve your paint processing and ensure excellent wet adhesion and proper curing of the paint film.

In the first stage of drying, the paint film needs to flow out or 'flash off'. In this stage you want to have a higher humidity so that the paint film can flow out, which you can stimulate with industrial humidifiers.

For the second stage of the drying process, which is after about 10 minutes, we advise air velocity. This will reduce your drying time with more than 20% to 30%.

A quality fan is available from £ 150-£400 and will decrease your drying time drastically. Suppliers of these fans are for instance Industrial Fans Direct or Axair Fans. 

Dry faster with IR drying systems

Catalytic infrared technology has proven to be highly effective for acrylic based binders. The infrared technology makes the paint dry from the inside outwards and will push the paint to the surface, curing the paint film faster. Force drying can increase your drying process and productivity a lot. In combination with our Hydrolux system you can reach a drying time of 30 minutes. For instance in combination with the IR drying system. More info here http://www.schuberts.co.uk/drying-curing/

Suppliers of this technology are for instance Schuberts or Fit Infrared

Temperature and humidity control

The most important prerequisite with waterborne paints is that you keep control of your climate settings. We recommend temperatures not colder than 15 degrees Celsius and a humidity level between 40% and 75%.

The lower the humidity level, the higher the risk of an orange peel effect. This problem is caused by the lack of stretching or levelling of the paint, resulting in a deformed surface and in an increased thickness of the final coat.

Especially in summertime, please keep in mind that the higher the temperature the quicker the flash-off and flow will be. Therefore we recommend installing humidifiers to make sure that the paint has enough time to flow out. This prevents the paint from crazing or cracking.

In conclusion, we recommend the following settings:

• A drying zone with a minimal temperature of 17 degrees Celsius.
• Air movement. For instance by industrial fans. (It is important to arrange one or more fans in such a way that air speed of more than 0.2 m/s is reached between the drying window frames.)
• Force drying can increase your drying process and productivity a lot. In combination with our Hydrolux system you can reach a drying time of 30 minutes. For instance in combination with the IR drying system. More info here http://www.schuberts.co.uk/drying-curing/
• Factory conditions should always be monitored with measure equipment. Temperature and relative humidity are best measured with a systems that record the conditions
• Make sure the paint are stored frost-free and above 10 degrees Celsius prior to use. If paint is too cold then this will affect the finish and the drying time.