Panel Bond Temperatures

[Jake51]

Hi,

Was hoping to get some ideas on how to get the room temp to a reasonable level to let panel bond cure correctly. Temps in the area we are working in are keeping the mountains on the Coors Light cans blue even outside the fridge!

Thanks

Tom

 

[DirtDonk]

How big of an area are you working on? An entire body tub, or just a couple of square feet of replacement panel?
Depending on what you’re doing, creating a plastic wrapped “room“ and throwing an area heater inside would probably do the trick.

 

[DirtDonk]

Or are you working outside?

 

[Jake51]

Or are you working outside?

Working on the top, putting supports in to stop it from oil canning. It's a workshop with a heater but isn't getting warm enough. Thinking portable heaters and the 'plastic room' idea could work. Appreciate the idea

 

[DirtDonk]

I installed a soft top in the cold weather one time and if you’ve ever tried that you know how much the vinyl shrinks. Makes it almost impossible to install.
Put everything together laid the top over the bows and then covered the whole thing with a standard blue tarp. Put 120 V electric room heater in the center of the floor in the back and plugged it in.
Went to work and when I came back the interior temperature was over 75° and the top had fully stretched out.
Worked great!

Of course I was concerned about running a heater all day, but it was fairly new at the time, I ran it on low or medium heat and I had a heavy gauge extension cord. Wasn’t worried about overheating the vehicle or top though, because it was pretty cold outside.

 

[Rustytruck]

If the metal is too cold the adheasive will not wick into the surface and bond well. we did a whole series of adheasive testing at work almost everything we tested was poor bond below 50 F and everything tested superior at 70 F but we were testing to steel pipe. both urethane's and 2 part epoxy's.

 

[jason_marshall1]

Does anyone recommend a infrared heater for just a couple of square feet at a time?

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[Qumanchew]

When I did my fender flares I used halogen work lights for some extra heat. If you set some up inside the Bronco it will get hot in there. Just don't put them near anything that will melt or burn.

 

[Jdgephar]

I was gonna mention a couple 100 watt light bulbs...

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