Well, it all started a month or so ago when I droped my humidor. I knew it wasn’t sealing as well as it had been, but I wasn’t sure just how bad it was. What I did know is that my Cigar Oasis Ultra was running all the time, and the finish was scratched up pretty bad.

During this same time I had been considering putting together a coolidor in which to store full boxes of cigars in the future, and had already begun on that doomed project (more later). One night during my usual insomnia I decided I would get the humidor down and see if there was some way I could refinish the box so it would at least look like it had not been dropped. Imagine my surprise when I opened the humidor only to discover that the hinge screws were all coming out. Of course this was not an expensive humidor so the body was made of press board and once this material starts separating there is no way to fix it.

At this point I knew my coolidor project was going to have to come together quickly. You may be wondering why I didn’t just pop the sticks into the coolidor I had already been working on at this point. Well, let me tell you a thing or two about painting a cooler. Don’t try it. (See Comments Below)

I primed the cooler with Valspar Plastic Primer, and finished with Valspar Enamel, but the paint just wouldn’t stick. There are other products on the market, but I wasn’t about to spend money on more paint and another cooler. Back to the broken humidor. I figured, my disfigured cooler was going to be in the closet anyway so it wouldn’t matter if it had blue spots showing through the brown paint here and there, but when I opened the cooler I was greeted with the overwhelming smell of paint. That’s right, the odor had seeped through the plastic to the inside of the cooler.

Another trip to Wal-Mart, and another $15 later I was the proud owner of another Coleman cooler. Now, I am not a cigar collector so I didn’t need a huge cooler, in fact this was the smallest one they had other than personal lunch coolers. I popped in an analog hygrometer, my Cigar Oasis Ultra, the wireless unit to my Acu-Rite weather station, the cedar tray from my old humidor, and my handful of cigars. I’m not sure if the Cigar Oasis Ultra will be able to keep up so I might have to pull it out and put in some RH beads or something of that sort. I may still get a small humidor some day just to keep a couple months worth of cigars in because, hey, I like the way a humidor looks on my bookshelf. For the time being though, I am in the realm of the coolidor keeper.

UPDATE (Re: Comment): First, let me say that I think it is very cool for someone from Valspar to take the time to reply to my blog post. Second, let me make some concessions that I probably should have made when I wrote the entry above.  Namely, that for my one negative post about Valspar Plastic Primer you can find dozens of positive experiences. I really think this product would work if it weren’t being used on such a tricky surface.  This cooler has a texture that is not conducive to painting even if it were not plastic (which is why I didn’t rush right back to Lowe’s to return the paint…I felt I was giving it an unfair trial).

Also, the really important problem here is the odor. If you were to successfully paint your coolidor the odor of the paint would still seep into the inside of the cooler over time, and this just isn’t acceptable for a container meant for storing cigars. Furthermore, this isn’t the fault of the paint. Most projects one would use plastic paint on would not need to be 100% odor free i.e. lawn furniture etc.

Finally, I should also mention that every wall in my house is painted with Valspar paint! I like working with this paint, and have had nothing but great results in every color from pink to green.