Coat drying device and coat drying method

A coat drying device for drying a wet-coated film applied to a coating surface of a continuously transported coating object, the coating object comprising a vehicle body and a bumper having a greater heat capacity than a heat capacity of the vehicle body, the coat drying device comprising:

• a drying furnace main body;
• and
• a controller,
• the drying furnace main body including
• a transport conveyor configured to transport the coating object in a conveyance direction,
• a pre-drying unit including a heat source and a heat source moving device, the heat source being configured to emit thermal energy, the heat source moving device being configured to movably hold the heat source, and
• a temperature raising unit and a temperature holding unit configured to blow hot air from a hot air generation supply device onto all of the coating object and dry the coated film applied to the coating object, the temperature raising unit and the temperature holding unit being disposed downstream of the pre-drying unit in the conveyance direction,
• the controller being configured to control the pre-drying unit such that the heat source moving device moves the heat source to the bumper and holds the heat source such that a spacing between the bumper and the heat source is maintained within a predetermined range, thereby providing the thermal energy predominately to a coating surface of the bumper to pre-dry the wet-coated film on the coating surface of the bumper.