Spent 6 months redoing the same bike frame before I noticed the real problem

I was stripping and repainting an old Schwinn frame from the 80s. Kept getting orange peel in the clear coat no matter what I did. After four tries I finally looked closer and realized I was spraying it in my garage where the humidity was hitting 70% each time. The moisture was messing up the finish before it could dry. Has anyone else had a project fail because of something obvious like your work environment instead of your technique?

2 comments

2 Comments

robertb3013d agoMost Upvoted

...actually had almost the same thing happen with a bike project a few years back. I was getting this weird hazy look on a purple frame and couldn't figure it out. Turned out my garage had really bad fumes from old paint cans and it was settling on the wet clear coat. I ended up building a simple spray booth with some PVC pipe and plastic sheeting from Home Depot. Ran a box fan with a furnace filter taped to it and it made a huge difference.

logan64812d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, did you say the fumes from old paint cans actually settled on your wet clear coat? That's wild... I never would have thought of that. I had a similar problem once and spent way too long blaming everything else before realizing it was probably my own fault. The funniest part is I used to store my paint cans right next to where I painted... totally asking for trouble. Glad the spray booth worked for you though... maybe I should try that instead of just blaming bad luck.