Humidity

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I know that humidity plays a big role in flocking, the area around your work space should be 60%-75% humidity I do believe?

My question is what about the flock itself, does is have to be at a specific humid level?

[Ray (Flock Man)]

Right now the humidity is about 85% where I store and do my flocking and everything works perfectly. I've done the flocking all the way up to 90% before some clumping starts and as low as 65% before it starts to act up. A little tip I was given (if using epoxy for adhesive) is to put a non-scented dryer sheet in a bag with you batch of flock and shake it around. The reason I was given was the dryer sheet removes any built up negative charge that the flock has making it neutral or uncharged. Then once dead flock jumps back to life in the charging field. I've tested this and it worked, but I found it doesn't work well with adhesives other than epoxy. I think this is due to epoxy being immune to moisture, salts, most acids, oils, etc.
Many times just a breath blown across the flock can give it enough moisture to jump. My treatment will attract more moisture than commercial so if they are mixed (commercial and mine) the excess moisture will even out to the dryer finish. All this may mean little with a shaker system. I watched a reflocker in person using a shaker (Noch unit) and right away I could see it wasn't going to cover the head enough once the glue dried. I think mainly this was because of the voltage is low. The Noch unit needs a complete grounding (like the clip connected to a pin that is touching some of the glue) for it to work at it's maximum. Some make their handheld with a very weak air assist instead of shaking it. With it the flock looks like club hair. The flock is in every direction instead of uniform. being much less uniform makes up for the lack of density.

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I went out and bought a hygrometer to check humidity, now I just need an inexpensive way to get humidity into the air. I don't really want to spend a "C" note on a humidifier just for flocking, I was thinking maybe a kettle would work?
At this point with all the cash I've spent/blown on different flocking and glues and time...what's another $100 You Know What I Mean?

[Ray (Flock Man)]

I grabbed a vicks model cheap from ebay and it works great. I was thinking down the line on adding a tube to the outlet to get the moisture closer to the work area. As of right now it's not needed, but when I do use it I put it on the floor under my Flocking Box and it seems fine. On some 1/6th horses I did I used the shaker unit and before I turned it on I would blow a breath into the hopper cup and it worked out great as long as I clipped the ground to the piece itself.

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Not that I ever doubted anyone...humidity really does the trick!
I was thinking about how to get some humidity into the air without spending a bundle, so I ended up using the rice cooker I just left the top off and let it run for about 1 hour and the humidity was @70 in the flock area and it worked great.

[Ray (Flock Man)]

I've been thinking about making a small booth so I can control the climate 100% and much easier. I think in the long run it'll also be better year round. I've seen booths for flocking offered for sale at various sites and think it's time to make one that has all the elements for flocking in one spot (like a hand held unit, cabinet, and a large item flocker all working of the same power source.
If you're doing under 10 or 20 heads it's not a problem, but for large orders of heads you really have to keep things constant or else the flock acts up, the glue acts up in large batches (more epoxy = more heat = faster cure = fewer heads per glue batch)

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I was thinking the same kind of thing myself. I just don't have enough room, and I can't keep the garage at 70% humidity all the time, that is where I store all my figures and stuff.

[Ray (Flock Man)]

Yea, space. Tough to deal with, but you would only need an old telephone booth size or maybe photo booth size. You could do the glue up and then jump in the booth and flock. Mainly you only need the space of a square foot around the flocking area to have humidity, so a little mist from a humidifier like you would put in a kids room when they are sick would do the trick. Like I said many times a breath of air is moist enough- blown across the fibers.

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I know it's a small enough space, but it would have to be a dedicated space... now if it were telephone booth... I could have the satisfaction of feeling like Dr. Who every time I went to flock heads ;D