Silas painted safes that held everything from jewelry to family heirlooms to firearms.  His customers weren’t end clients, but rather stores that carried safes for resale to individuals. The store would drop off two or three safes at his workshop and return to pick them up later in the week.  His safes always had a great look and, just as importantly, could maintain their finish under all kinds of conditions. The stores that contracted with Silas to paint the safes always marveled at how his work stood out on the showroom floor compared to other safes.

His work commanded a higher price and he was developing a reputation in the area for being a skilled craftsman.   Customers wondered how safes painted by Silas held up their appearance so much better.  Some spoke of having had one of his painted safes sitting in their garage for over a decade without a single scratch or nick on it.  What was his secret to not only such great looking work, but also such strong coatings?

Powder coating can offer additional protection for safes and automobiles. Image courtesy of Angieslist.

Silas’s secret wasn’t actually a secret at all.

Instead of using conventional painting techniques in his workshop, Silas had built an industrial paint curing oven that allowed him to cure the coatings of his safes exactly to his specifications, producing an attractive glossy finish that held up unbelievably well.

While we’ve recently discussed the importance of waiting for paint to completely cure or dry before making your final evaluation, there are actually a number of instances where you might wish to exert greater control over the drying process than if you simply waited for a coat to dry on its own. In some cases, like Silas’s safe-painting business, using a paint drying oven or paint curing oven will have a material effect on the end result of your paint job.  Paint drying or curing ovens are exactly that – ovens that exist for the purpose of applying consistent heat and air flow to the objects placed in them in an effort to accelerate and more strictly control the paint drying process.

An industrial sized paint curing oven. Image courtesy of ThomasNet

The end result of this process is often a harder, more protective coating for the substrate. After all, paint isn’t just for decoration, but for protection as well. Paint curing ovens allow this protective property to be enhanced even further and accomplished much more quickly.

Aside from practical uses like safes, automobile parts, and fishing lures, paint curing ovens allow paint professionals to have a higher degree of certainty when evaluating paint samples for qualities like sheen, color, gloss, and hardness. As it typically takes paint between 14 and 30 days to completely cure, using a paint curing oven allows researchers and chemists to recreate specific environmental conditions to replicate how a paint might naturally dry or cure without having to wait. As a result, they can formulate products that are more effective and useful for paint professionals in a variety of sectors.  For example, BYK produces a paint gradient oven that lets painters and researchers control 45 different heating elements in an effort to exert the most exacting control possible over the curing process. Consequently, researchers can work quickly and test different formulas ands products in a shorter timeframe.

With the right tools, paint professionals and chemists can exert an extraordinary amount of control over their materials. Paint curing ovens are one more piece of technology that can help expedite research or greatly effect the end result of a paint job.  While weekend painters and non-professionals likely think they are at the mercy of simply waiting for paint to dry on its own, professionals know better.  Click Here to learn more about the tools and additives produced by BYK to help painters have the maximum amount of control over the paint they use.