Every now and then...

A light bulb goes on.....

I have been trying to spray my finish for the kitchen I am working on. I am using waterborne urethane. Waterbornes like to be kept at around 70 degrees to lay down nicely.
Well, where I have to spray these is in an unheated space. The past couple of weeks have been perfect. This week that decided to change I think as soon as I got out the spray equipment...
Well, the first coat went down great. The second coat did not want to play nice. Everything orange peeled. Yesterday was just a raw damp day so I didnt even try. Anyway, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how to warm up a 5 gal pail of finish. I remembered I had an extra fish tank heater. I dropped that into the pail first thing this morning and cranked it up. put the cover on and let it warm up. I had to sand down all the doors and start over.
Once the finish was warmed up it sprayed beautifully. Still took forever to dry with the humidity but I got lucky twice as the sun came out as I was beginning to get frustrated again and I was able to move the doors out of the shed and let the sun hit them for the last half hour.
Finally! I can move forward.
Just thought I would share the fish tank heater tip for those of you, who, like me have to contend with unheated spaces and trying to get finish to cooperate!

The fish tank heater is a brilliant idea. That one is definitely going into the bag o' tricks.

When I read, "it needed heated up" I immediately thought !
Then I imagined exloding bucket, all kinds of disasters .
Way to use your brain and create a solution! Genius!

Heating up the finish is a good idea but how did you heat the surface of the end product.

Dave Hawksford said:

Heating up the finish is a good idea but how did you heat the surface of the end product.

Click to expand...

I had a space heater blowing at the doors with the shed door closed. Then I waited until late morning almost noon for it to warm up outside. Then I sprayed. I couldnt do anything about the humidity but all that did was slow down the drying time. When the sun came out later in the day I brought the last few doors that were still a bit "tacky" out and set them on horses to complete their drying.

One thing I had to be careful of though was not letting the doors heat up too much or too fast with the heater so they wouldn't warp.

Good thinking. The warm finish would have slid off the doors it they were cold.