A very common mistake that we see beginners make when trying to dry any type of paint is that they will hold their hair dryer way too close to the paint. Not only can this result in degradation of the painting, the hair dryer tends to perform better when held around an arms length away from the surface with your spray paint on it.
Can I Use a Hairdryer to Dry Paint?
Trying to get things done more quickly by cutting corners oftentimes produces bad results. So will attempting to dry freshly applied paint with a hairdryer do more harm than good?
You can use a hairdryer to speed up the drying process of paint. However, care needs to be taken not to apply the heat too aggressively. The intense heat will cause the paint to dry too quickly, which results in significant damage. Keeping the hairdryer a safe distance away is key.
- How different paints are affected by heat
- The correct way to use a hairdryer to dry paint
- Tips for drying paint faster without a hairdryer
Can You Use Hair Dryer After It Got.
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Oil-Based vs Water-Based
Oil- and water-based paints react well to using a hairdryer for faster curing, but a dryer can also weaken the paint. Rapid drying reduces the time for the paint to settle and stretch as it dries, putting more strain on the paint, which can lead to cracking.
A hairdryer may still be needed to dry paints if the humidity exceeds 80%. Though even without forced drying, water-based paints are more prone to cracking than oil-based paints.
Oil-based paints take time to dry in cold weather, and a hairdryer will help to evaporate the oils in the mix. A latex water-based paint will have a better chance of surviving the hairdryer treatment than a regular emulsion.
High heat or holding the hairdryer too close to either type of paint will cause burning and thinning as the air pushes the paint away from the surface. To prevent the dryer from damaging the paint, hold the dryer no closer than 10 inches away and turn the setting down to cool.
How Long Does It Take to Dry Paint with a Hairdryer?
In ideal conditions, oil-based paints will take one to two days to dry and water-based paints should dry within half a day. With a hairdryer, you may reduce the drying time down to two hours for oil-based paints and 30 minutes for water-based paints.
The best conditions for drying paints are temperatures exceeding 80°F (27°C), in the shade, and out of the rain. You also want to avoid painting if the humidity is above 85%.
The build-up of humidity in a small room will worsen the problem of a cold room. And oil-based paints and even water-based acrylics need a lot of fresh air to dry. Though a longer paint drying time means more chance of it catching bugs, hair, and fingerprints.
Can You Dry Spray Paint With A Hair Dryer?
You can dry the majority of types of spray paint with a hair dryer in a number of different ways often helping your paint to dry much quicker than it otherwise would. Although there are a number of other methods that you are able to use to dry your spray paint as fast as possible, none are as cheap or easy as the trusty hair dryer.
This is why we always recommend that our readers who are looking to dry their paint quicker at least try a hair dryer on their spray paint. We know that it is not for everyone but a large number of our readers should be able to get solid results with ease as well as be able to use their hair dryer on any further spray paint-based arts and crafts too.
As with most things in life, there are multiple ways that you are able to intergrate a hair dryer to help you dry your spray paint. Including as many of the tips and tricks below will be able to compound the effects of each other to help make your spray paint dry drastically quicker.
Is Your Spray Paint Oil-Based Or Water-Based?
The first thing that you have to workout is if your spray paint is oil-based or water-based as both types of paint dry in different ways. An oil-based spray paint dried via oxidisation where as a water-based spray paint dried by evaporating the water within it. Due to this, different methods in our article below will have different levels of effectiveness for each paint type.
The majority of people still presume that the majority of spray paints on the market are oil-based but the water-based formulas have improved considerably over the last decade with it usually being around a fifty-fifty split. Thankfully, the majority of spray paints will clearly say if they are oil-based or water-bases (sometimes listed as acrylic) right on the label.
We have dedicated articles on how to get oil paint to dry quicker as well as how to get water based paint to dry quicker. Depending on what you are doing and the type of spray paint that you are using they may be worth reading or at least skimming over too.
A Cheap Hair Dryer Is Perfectly Fine!
Our first tip for drying your spray paint with a hair dryer is to use a cheap hair dryer and although this may sound basic, so many people go out and over spend on an expensive hair dryer when it is essentially a waste of money. The additional functionality of the more expensive hair driers are essentially useless when it comes to drying your spray paint so it is essentially a waste of money.
There are plenty of cheap hair driers on the market these days that offer variable speed control of the air output and that’s really all you need. Even then, a large number of our readers will probably be fine with a base level $10 hair dryer that only has one speed.
There is also no requirement for you to get a hair dryer that can blow cold either and although many of the entry-level models on the market will offer a blow cold setting, it is not needed to dry spray paint so going with a model without it is fine. Depending on where your spray paint artwork is location, you may need a cordless hair dryer that are usually a little cheaper than the power cord variants but the price difference is still usually only around $5-$10 more expensive.
