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I'm no expert, and I agree with everything you said, but when I painted the vette, I washed the car, let it dry for about 2 hours (100 degree heat), wiped it down with a soaked mineral spirits rag several times like I was scrubbing it again, then after about an hour of drying and prepping for the paint, I painted. I didn't wait for the 24 hour dry time. I see that many like to let the 24 rule apply with the mineral spirits, but I have actually wiped a bad roll/mixture off of the whole hood while it was still wet and re-started. After the 10 hour dry time with the paint, the mineral spirits didn't pull any paint off when I wiped it down for a quick next coat.

To sum it all up, I didn't find any signs that the 24 hour dry time was critical in this paint process. The Rustoleum is pretty hard stuff, so far.

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The benefit you enjoyed that many don't is the hot dry climate. I think you mentioned 100 degree temperatures. As such your drying times are going to be much shorter than some of the folks in the more moderate climates. And of course the humidity in the air is also going to play into the factoring on just how long to wait before moving to each stage.

So that is where the suggested extended drying periods enter into the recipe... as a longer set period of time will ultimately prove to work best for the majority of rollers. But even then... the extra wait time for folks in excellent climates such as yours can't hurt.

What can hurt the process is when someone tries to leapfrog through the steps too quickly. That is why one of the key principles that Charger tried to get us to understand and put into practice is to exercise patience during the process.

In the end... variations on the 'drying times' will vary between users as each has to fine tune their timing based on their local climatic conditions at the time of the paint job

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