March 19 & 20, 2020
The heater finally arrived and like the fierce ball of fire that it is, it is great at heating the garage. We’ve decided to prime all the internal surfaces, for simplicity and resale value. I had to work today so I left Paul to take the first stab at priming. Like all first attempts, there was a learning curve.
All of the parts needed to be washed with Dawn and scrubbed with a Scotch-Brite pad to give the primer the best surface to bond with. This process also needs to happen within 2 hrs of priming or else the aluminum will start oxidizing again and interfere with the primer.
The two-part epoxy primer needs to be mixed up and allowed to set for 30 minutes prior to spraying. In the first attempt, Paul didn’t mix the cans well enough and the first layer of spray came out clear instead of green. Those parts were re-sprayed with an appropriately mixed batch of primer and don’t look any worse for wear except for being a bit glossier than the rest. It’s a weight gain to re-spray them, but a small one overall.
After the first session, the rest went pretty smoothly. It definitely helped to have two people in the process. Mostly for cleaning, moving parts in and out of the booth, and double checking everything. The big surfaces were easy, but it was much harder to make sure all of the flanges and corners were sufficiently sprayed. We had to re-do a few pieces, usually just one flange per piece. The skins were the best, they took far less primer than we expected and came out really well. We didn’t tape off the exterior, but if we were to do it again we would. The overspray left a texture on the exterior that’ll have to be dealt with prior to final painting.
It took us two days to get all of the parts primed and we’ll wait 48 hrs before we do anything more just to be sure all the primer has cured. With intermittent uses of the heater the garage is staying nice and toasty to keep the process going.
p.s. Don’t forget your personal protective equipment when working with epoxy, it’s toxic and it gets everywhere. The photo on the right shows the exhaust filter after we finished priming all the parts compared to a fresh filter.
Cheers,
-Kacy
(Total Build Time: 49 hrs)