[markeb01]

I used to bake freshly painted exhaust manifolds and anything coated in wrinkle paint in the oven, but the results were not always consistent and the smell was really obnoxious. My wife is very tolerant of my hobbies but as I got older I had a lot less tolerance for the smell of the fumes in the house. So I started experimenting with heat lamps and now depend on them for all my small painting projects. I have two permanently mounted over the painting bench and two more portable lamps to cover bigger projects. They work great and keep both of us happy.

The worst paint smell I ever initiated was back when I was about 17. I sprayed black vinyl dye on a late model bench seat to put in my 54 Chevy, downstairs in the rumpus room. Being young and stupid it never occurred to me to open the windows or wear any kind of mask. The seat turned out looking like factory upholstery, but the hideous fumes smelled like ether mixed with lacquer. By the time I finished the seat I barely made it out of the room, and found the smell was so bad upstairs everyone had fled to the front yard where they remained for several hours!