painting at low temps

[Uno]

Howdy forum,

Hope this finds you healthy, happy, and revolving.

I've always used the guideline of 50 degrees for the threshold of when to be able to paint. Paint dries in less than ten minutes in abq. Does it matter that it might hit 32 degrees 8 hours after it dries?

How about appropriate temps for applying bondo?

At colder temps, I think a person can cheat by keeping the material (bondo, primer) warmer by leaving it in the sun that shines like a red rubber ball here 300 days a year.

Let me also ask you this. I tell people that freezing ruins paint, if it's stored in a garage for the entire month of february. Am I right or just a worry-wart. I usually can't use the paints that I find in people's garages or outbuildings because of this. My guess is that freezing does ruin latex, but it happens after doing it several times.

Penny for your thoughts.

Peace, love, american autumn,

[DerbyDad03]

Hav They want both the product *and* the surface that it will be applied to to be 70 - 80 degrees for optimal bonding and strength.

The product temp of 70 - 80 I was able to maintain, but the surface temp of the sill was probably about 50.

The cured product laughed in the face of 100 grit sandpaper, so it appears to have cured just fine. As long as it stays bonded to the sill until spring, I'll be quite happy since that's when I'm having it wrapped with aluminum.

[Uno]

DD, what temperature band are you in?

[trader4]

I think the answer to this is that whether you can get away with it or not depends on the specific product and how far you choose to push it. It would seem to me that manufacturers would like to make their product as universal as possible, so they can sell more of it, so when they say only use it above X degrees, I would suspect they have good reason to do so. Given the consequences of failure, eg a whole house with peeling paint that is a bitch to resolve, I would not push my luck. How lucky do you feel based on anything anyone here can tell you? If you want to push it, then I'd call or email the product manufacturer and see what they have to say.

I think the latex paint thing is that again, it depends on the actual paint. I agree that the freeze and how many times it's done are factors. Partially frozen once, probably OK. Solid frozen several times, it's more likely shot.