Car Painting on a Rainy Day... any effect on output quality?

**godoy** · May 14th, 2006 01:09 PM

Guys, I remember people saying it's not advisable to paint your car during the rainy season. I brought my car for washover on the 1st week of May. It was still hot during the time that I didn't anticipate it would rain a week after. Until now it's still in the shop.

At the moment, I don't think I have any other choice but wait for the shop to finish painting the car. I have several questions though... thought I'd ask for assistance from experts in this community.

1. Given that it started raining a few days ago, do I expect the washover job to take longer? I brought it to the shop may 4 and they told me I can pick it up on may 20. They're using dupont paint and have their own oven (not sure if it makes any difference).

2. Assuming it get's done on time (May 20), what should I expect? What are the likely effects of car painting during the rainy days?

3. Need tips to get me by after the car gets re-painted, considering the weather condition.

Thanks in advance. I look forward to hearing your advice.

**theveed** · May 14th, 2006 01:28 PM

Myth...

From WetLook FAQ...

The rainy day "bubble" myth

Car owners are hesitant to have their cars painted when its raining for fear of the dreaded "Bubbles" or "Blisters". This is not true. Generally, the weather has nothing to do with the bubbles or blisters on the car's paint but is always blamed for it. More often, the root cause of blisters is solvent popping caused by the paint sprayer who did not observe the correct flash-off time during the paint spraying stage. Flash-off simply means the allowance of time as specified by the paint manufacturer for the solvent or thinner to evaporate during the paint spraying stage.

In the painting process, a car is sprayed over with basecoat (color) and clearcoat (topcoat) a number of times. If the sprayer fails to observe the flash-off time in between coats, trapped solvents under the succeeding coats will find a way out creating microscopic bubbles.

These tiny holes become very evident during the rainy season when moisture enters the holes and manifests as blisters only to disappear when the sun shines and the moisture evaporates. The long-term effect of blistering is more damaging - as a result paint chipping and lifting will take place.

Cars refinished with Acrylic Lacquer (1K) are more susceptible to blistering. These type of paints have very low film build per coat (low opacity) , the sprayer has to do twice as much sprayovers thereby increasing the probability of failure to observe flash-off times.

In essence, paints are viscous; solvents and thinners are only vehicles for pain to be sprayed on a substrate or surface and should completely evaporate first during the drying process.

==============

Personally, I'm sure that it's not true as well, unless your painter doesn't even have fully-covered paintbooth, then that's another issue... Even if it's not raining, dust, pollen, etc will stick to your paint if he doesn't have the basic facilities sorted out.

Paintbooth with the proper ventilation system is a must...

**the_wildthing** · May 14th, 2006 02:14 PM

Problema lang ang ulan kung sa labas ka nagpipintura.

**godoy** · May 14th, 2006 02:50 PM

Wow! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, guys. I got 2 replies so far and am loving the responses.

I'm getting the impression that I don't have to worry about rain (delay or poor quality) as long as the paint shop knows what they're doing. I'm pretty sure they'll do just fine. I have heard very good things about their work. Thanks, david and the the_wildthing.

**empy** · May 14th, 2006 11:49 PM

former painter here.

it is true that the moisture itself is not a factor unless it can somehow get into the finish...but it happens sometimes because some low-budget painters paint in tents or in a part of the building that is exposed to the outside - the reason for this is that the best way to check a color match while you're painting is to look at it in direct sunlight.

another factor about rainy days is the temperatures. it is much much easier to do a perfect job on a hot and dry (low humidity) day - when it's colder the paint doesnt flash as good, so it tends to run. you also have to use low-temperature solvents, which do weird things if you're not used to working with them.

third, when the job is drying you want it to "flash", or have the outer layer dry and harden, as quickly as possible, so that the lint and dust that settle on the car while it's parked have no time to get stuck in the finish.

finally, rainy days are dark and cloudy, which make you have to rely on artificial light, which as i mentioned is not as good as sunlight for a painting environment.

in california the temperatures during the rainy season are 15+ degrees F lower and i used to hate coming to work because i had to redo my work more often because of those issues.

so the answer is, you can get as good a job painting during a rainy day as a sunny day, but it's harder to do so because the margin of error is higher.

**the_wildthing** · May 16th, 2006 02:05 AM

Which is why a controlled paint booth is necessary, parang yung ginagamit ni Chip Foose sa Overhaulin'.

**baludoy** · June 20th, 2018 06:41 PM

I hope this down pour we're having right now won't last a week like the last time around. [emoji120]

do what you gotta do so you can do what you wanna do