Home>Acrylics> Application > Understanding and Controlling Acrylic Drying Time

Understanding and Controlling Acrylic Drying Time

12 thoughts on “Understanding and Controlling Acrylic Drying Time”

    • Hello Susan, Typically we suggest starting with 15% and increasing as needed up to 25%. In thin films one can add more then this but it will increase the risk of color lift in subsequent applications. Should you have a specific goal in mind or desire more information please feel free to contact us at [email protected]

      Reply
  1. Hi! This article was very helpful to me when I was getting started with acrylic a few years ago. Now that I’ve been doing acrylic for a while, I wonder if dew point (which I guess considers both humidity and pressure?) has been considered as a factor more so than just humidity alone. I’m sitting here now waiting over an hour for my layer of gloss medium to dry and watching a tropical storm raining down out the window. I live in a high-humidity area, but the dry time of my paint seems to vary between two days of similar humidity. I haven’t been carefully monitoring it until now, but I think it’s very possible I’ve seen wildly varying results depending on dew point. I understand people can add a humidifier to their studio but can’t alter pressure, so it might seem irrelevant.

    Have y’all already looked into this? If not, I might start tracking it and dry time and do my own experiment.

    Reply
    • Hello Sarah, We are thrilled that the article was useful to you! We have not factored in atmospheric pressure into our studies regarding dry time (we do when studying permeability) but, as pressure dramatically effects boiling point and vapor pressure it would make sense that high pressure fronts would slow the cure rates of coatings. Unfortunately, studio pressure is a factor that is much harder for an artist to control… If you start to track barometric pressure, humidity, and dry times please keep us posted.

      Reply
  2. Great article. Thank you.

    My background is oils, and about a year ago I swithched to the heavy acrylic line. I miss the pleasures of working with oils. Is there an optimal mixture of OPEN gloss medium (or some other product) for extending drying time (until all my paints are OPEN)?

    Reply
    • Hello Sophie, Thank you for your question. The temperature you stated should be fine to use acrylic paints indoors. We tried to look for technical information on this paint an were unable to find any. If you reach out to Mondo Llama you could ask what the Minimum Film Formation Temperature is for their product. They would be able to give you a more specific number for their paints.

      Hope this helps and let us know if you have more questions!
      Best regards,

      Scott

      Reply

Leave a Comment

*

css.php