We typically spray red or gray solvent based primers on structural and misc. steel. We have a new shop in another state, and the county regulations require a spray booth, sprinkler system, etc. if we use our current solvent based primers because of the fire hazard. This would be at a cost of around $200k. To avoid this, I thought we'd try a water based primer. We ran this by the county and it was approved. I realize there are some drawbacks in using a water based primer. One is the drying time. Does anyone know of something that could be added to the paint to decrease drying time? Also, if anyone has had any experience with water based primers, I'd like to hear of any issues, and what you've done to overcome them.
Scott,
evaporation of water can be accelerated by means of heat. Another way is mixing it with common (ethyl) alcohol, but this wouldn't work, because alcohol is also flammable.
Sorry for not being useful to you.
Giovanni S. Crisi
Sao Paulo - Brazil
A couple of things to consider...
YES, Heat and air flow Will accelerate the "drying of the paint".
The down side to this is that there is still a certain amount of time required for "CURE". Curing is not just the phisical drying of the water from the paint but is to allow the Chemical processes to complete their reactions and
A) properly Bond to the surface,
B) accept additional paint to properly adhere to the previous coats.
This why the paint manufacturers always note the temperature range and "drying time" before applications of additional coats that seem to be far in excess of the "not tacky to the touch".
Even armed with this knowledge...I am guilty of blasting an item with a propane weed burner just to hurry up and get it out the door...
Of course, this was not in a QA/QC capacity...art projects only...
My story and I'm sticking to it!
We tried the water based stuff....backed up the shop, had the fitters and welders working 8/day and the paint shop working 10's 7 days a week, and still couldn't keep up...we figured it just wasn't worth it and gave up with the water based stuff.
John,
You have confirmed my worst nightmare.
Some of the water based primers, can't speak for all, do not have the bonding strength to support a mutli coat system and are only intended to be temporary rust inhibitor coatings.
And then what if that big project you get requires paint other than water base then you will have to put in the booth and sprinkler system.
Accelerators, although i dont recall using them with waterbase
What kind of primer?
wacobird hit it right on the head. You can have your own shop primer, but not all projects will allow that product to be used. In fact I would suspect that most won't allow it to be used because it can't support the other top coats. Then like he said, what do you do? your stuck and you'll have to apply asolvent based product, and you may need the booth in that case.
Is there no way to get around that requirement of a spray booth? Who has that kind of space? We have air handlers for input and exhaust with the paper filters to catch the solids, I think there's a sprinkler up there, I never looked. Funny because its a wood rafter building also... hmmm.
Forum
