Hello! I just ran in from the shop here at my house... I have a wood burning stove that keeps me warm while I'm working, does a good job and adds to the old time feeling. But of couce she cools down over the night until I light another fire going in the morning. I only have one stove at the moment and hope to add another on the otherside of the shop sometime soon. Think I'll get a a small wood and coal stove as the coal you can usually keep going over the night until the am. I actually come from an old fuel company growing up. We delivered fuel, coal, ice and feed till we sold the bussiness a few years back. Coal kept us warm for many nights. My question is... Do any of you old autobody guys have any tricks for keeping body putty or paint warm if you dont have constant heat in the shop? Storage ideas? I'm not doing any bodywork at moment, but saw a can of paint on my way into the garage to light the fire for today. Figured I'd ask while I'm waiting for the old girl to warm up. Coolers work both ways, just dont want a ton of coolers in my shop! Love to hear some of your great ideas.... Thanks!
My shop has gas heat, but I cant afford to keep it warm at night through the long montana winters. I have a small 3 x8 heavily insulated room that has electric baseboard heat, and if I dont want something to get cold I can stash it in there
I try to buy only what I need and if I can't use it right away I keep it in my ba*****t in my house. But I always leave body filler out in the cold. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to be OK when I go to use it. I just usually do a test to make sure. Especially with paint. I don't know anyone with a shop that's heated all the time.
I have left paint in my shop over winter for years and I live in Wisconsin. I don't think freezing hurts automotive paint. Might hurt the new water based paint though. Same for body filler, no problem.
Use an non working fridge or freezer, install a few shelves as needed. (Stand the freezer on end) with a 100 watt light bulb in it, and left on, they will stay nice and warm. Good for storing welding rod in as well, keeps everything dry. Paint it up, stripe it, hang pictures or a calendar on it, it will soon blend in. Rob
Thermal m***. Lots of thermal m***. For me it's lots of concrete. If there is a small room made of concrete or brick or blocks in the center of the building, or if you stack some blocks to make a small sized pantry, it will take a long long time to change temperature of the storage cubby hole if the building temp drops. I like the fridge and bulb idea too, if you don't have concrete pillars or walls handy. Or here's an idea- you say you have a woodburner. This is what some friends did a long time ago when their car heater quit. You could lay a number of bricks near the stove when the heat is going, and let them get hot. When it's time to leave and let the fire go down, throw the warm bricks into the non-running fridge, one rack below the paint rack, and let the warm bricks keep the fridge warm. I know some people who did that with their car- they laid warm bricks on the car floor, put a blanket over the bricks and ran errands with the hot bricks keeping the car warm for a few hours, then put the bricks back by the stove for a later errand if needed. They did that for a whole winter before trading the car for a newer model the next summer. They tell me it worked great. Redneck engineerings' finer moments. I have a wood framed shop with a woodburner. I used to have the problem of quick temperature changes as the fire got bigger and smaller, then bigger, then smaller, as I put in new wood, let it burn, refill, etc etc. I brough home quite a few concrete blocks and mortar mix. The woodburner in my shop is now partly surrounded on two of the 4 sides with concrete walls, and sits on a concrete floor pad about two foot thick on top of the concrete floor. Now with all that "thermal m***" as they call it, I don't get all that heat, cool, heat, cool, that I used to get. When I fire up the woodburner I get heat pretty fast, then the all that concrete nearby just sets there storing up a lot of heat energy over the course of the day. Later at night when the fire dies down, the warm concrete keeps the shop from getting too cold overnight, and makes it easy to warm back up in the morning. Instead of warming up the shop from 35 degrees in the morning, all I have to do now is warm it up from about 50-55 degrees since it doesn't cool off that quickly anymore.
Shop heat???? Not here. I need AC. It's been in the high 80's for a week and I have been working in shorts and a t-shirt. I just came in from the shop and I am sweating.
Fridge....great idea! Thats about as much paint as I keep around, fridge will be perfect. I've got some room, but not enough space for a small room, Chaz... your place is nuts! I tend to paint a lot of signs and use a lot of laytex as well...so that tends to go bad. Your right, never really had any auto paint go bad... but I do like keeping stuff I'm using a little warmer then the temp outside now or soon to be. Thanks for the suggestion, appreciate great ideas! Moving is a great one!
I posted before I read your responce as I was out in the garage working all day and this thread was waiting for me inside hours later... Funny you should metion the bricks! I was going to mention it in my initial post but did'nt. As kids, my father would warm bricks for us a few hours before we went to bed. He would then wrap them up in towels and my Mom would place them in our beds under our feet. Keep us warm for hours! Ahhh, the good old days!
I dont know what type of wood burning stove you have, but we use a barrel stove in the shop and it will stay pretty warm all night and will keep coals hot until you can return the next mourning to put more wood in, hardly ever have to start a fire just add wood best wood stove ive ever saw and cheap too get an old oil drum buy a barrel stove kit for $30-$50
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