acrylic, enamel and laquer approximate dry times

[foxbat426]

Can someone please explain what the approximate dry times for the various paints are. Mainly enamel, acrylic and laquers. The hardest thing to do in this hobby is waiting to get back on a shell right after painting, especially when you mess it up and want to resand it.

[XJ6]

Well i am not an expert on the matter....but my rule of thumb is after any painting (car) and parts, is to always wait 3-4 days before i do any handling, polishing, masking, BMF and what hav-ya..this is speaking of using Lacquers..

Enamels which i very seldom use... i wait a least a week....for they just take a long time to dry...

I use acrylic mostly for detail..and they dry the quickest...but i always wait at least an hour....recoat...handling.. etc....

Of course all this depends on temp's for drying time

Cheers....Don aka XJ6

Edited March 18, 2012 by XJ6

[LoneWolf15]

Enamel cut with cheap laquer thinner, 3 days .

Laquer , 2 days .

Acrylics , they don't exist on my planet .

[XJ6]

Enamel cut with cheap laquer thinner, 3 days .

Laquer , 2 days .

Acrylics , they don't exist on my planet .

Question out of curiosity....why would you "cut Enamel with cheap Lacquer thinner"... or any Lacquer thinner for that matter ?

Thanks....and Cheers Don aka XJ6

[SuperStockAndy]

I'm usually polishing after only a couple hours.

[Cato]

'Artificially' drying in a dehydrator will advance those times radically.

[LoneWolf15]

Question out of curiosity....why would you "cut Enamel with cheap Lacquer thinner"... or any Lacquer thinner for that matter ?

It thins it , warms it , causing it to flow and lay down glass smooth . Drys fast and tight , with no loss of detail . By the way , when I say cheap , I mean hardware store variety , not automotive !

Thanks....and Cheers Don aka XJ6

[Harry P.]

Paint dries via evaporation. The solvents evaporate, leaving the pigment and binder behind.

So one way to tell if lacquer or enamel paint is fully dry is to smell it (acrylics have less of a "paint smell"). If you can still smell that "paint smell," the solvents have not evaporated completely, and the paint is not fully dry.

[sportandmiah]

It also depends on what you are painting. If you paint a body with acrylic, it will take ay least a day. But if im painting small parts, acrylic takes maybe a few.hours. All depends how thick it is applied. If I airbush an engine with alcohol thinned acrylic, light coat,its touch.dry within the.hour. I don't use enamel without lacquer thinner OR a food dehydrator. Combining those allows an enamel painted body to be.dry in about 2 days. Straight enamel from a can will take at least a week to dry. Tamiya in the can dries very fast..within a day or so.

[jayhkr]

Paint dries via evaporation. The solvents evaporate, leaving the pigment and binder behind.

So one way to tell if lacquer or enamel paint is fully dry is to smell it (acrylics have less of a "paint smell"). If you can still smell that "paint smell," the solvents have not evaporated completely, and the paint is not fully dry.

My wife already thinks I do weird things, last thing I need her doing is walking in on my while I'm "sniffing" my models. LOL I can see her look now.

[The70judgeman]

Paint dries via evaporation. The solvents evaporate, leaving the pigment and binder behind.

So one way to tell if lacquer or enamel paint is fully dry is to smell it (acrylics have less of a "paint smell"). If you can still smell that "paint smell," the solvents have not evaporated completely, and the paint is not fully dry.

I'll second that. Your sniffer is your best tool. Conditions vary your dry times due to humidity and other variables...no matter what paint you use.

[zenrat]

WHy not ease the waiting period by starting another one?

[Art Anderson]

Paint dries via evaporation. The solvents evaporate, leaving the pigment and binder behind.

So one way to tell if lacquer or enamel paint is fully dry is to smell it (acrylics have less of a "paint smell"). If you can still smell that "paint smell," the solvents have not evaporated completely, and the paint is not fully dry.

Harry and all!

To be a bit more specific here: Lacquers and water-borne acrylics dry solely by evaporation of their solvents (lacquer of course, the solvent is lacquer thinner--almost always "industrial alcohols" with perhaps some acetone in the mix). Water borne acrylics use both some form or another of industrial alcohol along with water). The drying time of lacquers is dependent almost totally on the ambient air temperature, which of course can be varied by the use of lower-temperature rated lacquer thinner at say, ordinary room temperature. Water-borne acrylic drying time is greatly affected not only by the ambient air temperature in the room, but ALSO by the relative humidity.

Enamels are a different story altogether: Enamel paints in their most traditional and basic form are pretty much a varnish, with pigments added for color. Varnishes are a resin-type material, reduced ordinarily by mineral spirits, so there are two stages to their drying: First, the mineral spirits must evaporate, which is a lot slower than say, lacquer thinner. Once the reducer (thinner or mineral spirits if you will) has pretty much evaporated, the "wet enamel becomes sticky or "tacky" in nature. This is where the second stage of the drying process happens--the varnish-type "resins" actually oxidize (combine with oxygen from the surrounding air, which has the effect of hardening them, and that can take some time. As enamel resins are oil-based (traditional enamels used linseed oil, for example), a drying agent is generally added to the mix (anyone here who has ever done oil painting--think Van Gogh or Rembrandt here should know what "Japan Dryer" is, a chemical which when added to enamel greatly speeds the drying time). Again, the amount of "dryer" added to enamel paints along with the ambient air temperature greatly determines the drying (and curing!) time.

In the days when body shops used either nitro-cellulose or acrylic lacquers, the rule of thumb was, no color sanding or rubbing out until the lacquer finish had dried for at least 30-days, but then, lacquer applied with a production (body shop style) spray gun results in a coat of lacquer far thicker than a modeler's airbrush will give, although rattle cans come pretty close to the thick coatings of a full sized spray gun).

As a rule, when I use automotive acrylic lacquers on a model, which for me definitely means airbrushing, I let the paintjob sit untouched for at least 48 hours before polishing out. With the non-penetrating lacquers (real nitro-cellulose and acrylic lacquers have reducers that are so "hot" they can actually penetrate styrene plastic, which is what causes crazing) and as such, are slower to dry thoroughly than their automotive counterparts, so I prefer to let such body shells sit for a minimum of one week before polishing.

All that said, a very good (and not all that costly!) option is to buy a food dehydrator (once summer comes on, and fruits and veggies start coming in out of the garden (or the produce department, or some "farmers' market", dehydrators take up a fair amount of space in retail stores. A food dehydrator makes a very good drying chamber, not so hot inside as to damage a styrene body shell (although with resin, due to that material's much lower tolerance for heat, ordinary air drying is highly recommended!), and can completely dry lacquer in a few hours, and certainly cure out enamels hard in a day or so.

But, absent any artificial drying method, everyone's experience will vary, given the effects of temperature and humidity.

Art

[Bruce Poage]

This is great info. I use rattle cans and have a dehydrator. I keep those dehyd dry times on a note card beside the unit as a reminder. My question--maybe really dumb, but I am assuming the clear coats used on these respective paints would require the same amount of time--correct? Thanks.

[MikeMc]

This is great info. I use rattle cans and have a dehydrator. I keep those dehyd dry times on a note card beside the unit as a reminder. My question--maybe really dumb, but I am assuming the clear coats used on these respective paints would require the same amount of time--correct? Thanks.

I know with Tamiya lacquers the Colors and TS13 dry at different rates....Thats why you either clear right now, or wait 30 days to prevent cracking,

Bob Downie can expand on this better than I.