International.
PPG shared some recommendations for choosing the diluent for vehicles in workshops. The company ensures that it is important to take into account a series of factors such as humidity, size of the repair to be carried out, and the ambient temperature at which it will be applied, the latter being of vital importance to be able to achieve an optimal level of finish and in the shortest possible time.
Each season of the year has an ideal type of diluent/catalyst to achieve the optimal finish. The company shared the following practical guide:
The arrival of winter is a good time to put into practice some useful tips. At the time of application there are parameters that are what they are and we can not control or vary, such as relative humidity or the size of the repair, but there are others that we can control and that will help us to a better application and a high quality finish.
One of the parameters that we can control is the temperature inside the cabin. The paints we use in the workshop are chemicals that react with each other, and the ambient temperature is a factor that influences the speed of this reaction. In winter it is very important that we maintain a temperature in the application cabin above 15-18ºC. A temperature below 15ºC will cause the reaction to be very slow and that this can cause other defects and low performance of the product.
It is also important to control the temperature of the paint itself and the vehicle or part to be painted. Before proceeding to its application, the paint must be tempered to the same temperature that we have inside the paint booth, and the vehicle must also have been tempered. If the paint were much colder than the surface to be painted, we could have drops, drops in brightness, greater orange peel, and other finishing defects.
On the other hand, when we return to have spring and summer temperatures, we must move towards slower diluents that allow the correct application of the paint and that its evaporation adapts to the reaction speed. We should not worry about the use of a slow or extra-slow diluent in summer, since these diluents will be appropriate for painting horizontal surfaces at high temperatures.
In recent times, equipment for filtering and heating the compressed air with which the paints are applied has appeared. The temperature of the compressed air, air that mixes directly with the paint inside the gun, is a parameter that must also be controlled and that will condition the choice of diluent. Under normal conditions the compressed air of application should be around 20-22ºC, and any increase in this temperature must be in line with the temperature of the part to be painted to avoid thermal shocks.
