please help me understand this. i've been having some issues with either micro bubbles or solvent pop.
so i have been spraying with <=5% retarder and getting decent results. the coat goes on and bubbles immediately appear, but they pop out within a couple minutes and everything is good. when i watch them pop out, the surface of the freshly sprayed coating is almost boiling, with bubbles popping very quickly. however, if i retard with more than 5%, the surface won't boil as much and most of the bubbles seem to remain.
so saturday i did some experimenting and wasn't having any luck with being able to get decent flow with only retarding 5% (or decent results with retarding more), so i switched from retarding to thinning. the results are night and day different, with thinning resulting in a much better, and without the boiling effect, finished product.
thinning, to my understanding, should be avoided on hot days, because it can cause the coating to dry quicker, and not provide enough time to allow the solvents to get out of the coating. retarding decreases the dry time and is generally recommended in warmer temperatures.
i'm spray ilva 2k urethane. saturday was 82* with 40% humidity. i'm spraying a kremilin aaa pump.