paint booth

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hamesdart

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hey everyone, i was wondering what everyone thinks from experience building a paint booth in a garage, set up the best way possible would be as far as concerns to quality...explosion hazards,police and illegal activities and so on.
I know theres risks to explosion with the fumes and any spark... i know its hard to keep dust down perfect and so on and its not exactly legal in all areas but how were your experiences in making your own paint booths?

Best case senario... good masking and airtight plastic room indoors garage with good warm tempature... good ventalation ,resperator and fans/filters/into wet blankets or something... and all ignition sources off minus florecent lighting. how would that go?
 
getting rid of the fumes while keeping the dust down are the twomost important steps

Wet floor and sealed lighting on the walls and corners of the walls is great with a few over top of the vehicle. Smooth walls. no electrical swithes inside the booth



el cheepo would be a plastic curtain with a box fan at one ned
 
I've built a few home made booths in the last 30 years,considering some of them when I was young and foolish I'm probably lucky to be alive. The most simple yet safe is with the garage door about 1/3 of the way up with furnace filters filling the open space on the bottom. Use some clear poly to seal the upper part of the open door. Put a square house fan in the door or a good sized window at the front of the area to cause air to flow through the length of the bay. Make sure the compressor, furnace etc. are in the other bay(assuming a double garage). Divide the bays with a simple 2x4 wall (3'o.c.)sheeted with more clear poly to maximize light from 2nd bay. Be sure to back car out before starting and spray down walls and floor with water as well as ground in front of filters and filters themselves. I've turned out many dust free paint jobs with this type of setup at a very low cost. BTW you can make explosion proof style flourescent lights by using surface mount boxes with stick on foam weather strip and 1/8 plexi covers screwed on.
P.S. Do your painting very late at night if you have any neighbors you don't quite get along with LOL.
 
well my garage is a one and a half car garage. 1 space big enough for the car and then a regular door by the garage door to walk in and then the space left over is for walking and washer/dryer and sink.
then at the other end of that is the other door to exit as well.
The only flourecent light strips are right on that border line were i would drape the plastic sheeting.... so im thinking seperate that off and leave the light outside of the room. add a few lights inside. and have the garage door be the intake and the far exit door be were the air escapes.... wet everything down start spraying later at night and all is well??
 
The booth I have now is 2x4 construction with 45 degree corners, all aluminum sheeting interior with cutouts for lights covered with laminated glass and flourescent lights mounted behind glass. It uses a wall mounted fan up high with paint diffusers. Works great, didn't cost a ton of money I park in it when I'm not painting. I don't think painting cars is legal in any residential area but seriously, painting at night avoids attracting attention from neighbors and there is less dust in the air. Although I live in the country now, I've never had a problem with authorities when I was in the city so long as I didn't do it too often.
 
well my garage is a one and a half car garage. 1 space big enough for the car and then a regular door by the garage door to walk in and then the space left over is for walking and washer/dryer and sink.
then at the other end of that is the other door to exit as well.
The only flourecent light strips are right on that border line were i would drape the plastic sheeting.... so im thinking seperate that off and leave the light outside of the room. add a few lights inside. and have the garage door be the intake and the far exit door be were the air escapes.... wet everything down start spraying later at night and all is well??

Sounds good. One thing I can't stress enough is lights.....LOTS OF LIGHTS. You can buy cheap 2 bar 48" boxes at home depot .lighting can make or break a paint job. The side I would use for the booth I would paint with high gloss oil base paint that could be washed down often and reflect light. Can you even buy oil base paint in Calif any more LOL?
 
Kander, got any more car painting tips to share? I have an old wagon I'd like to spruce up to possibly sell. Not looking for perfection but something decent.Right now it has the familiar peeling silver paint.
 
Kander, got any more car painting tips to share? I have an old wagon I'd like to spruce up to possibly sell. Not looking for perfection but something decent.Right now it has the familiar peeling silver paint.

First of all I should give the disclaimer that I'm not a bodyman, just a guy who's done a lot of do it your self stuff with a decent amount of success. Does it need rust repair and body work or just paint?
 
Kanders has got a lot of good suggestions. The spraybooth at an aircraft shop I used to use had filters on the intake and exhaust fans. It was amazing how much paint the exhaust filters caught and cut down on the odor, too.

I strongly recommend using a respirator and a covering for head and ears. If the respirator does not cover the nose, use plugs in your nose. When I painted the underhood and rear deck of the Demon, I neglected this detail. I had Petty Blue nose hair for a couple of days. LOL
 
Kanders has got a lot of good suggestions. The spraybooth at an aircraft shop I used to use had filters on the intake and exhaust fans. It was amazing how much paint the exhaust filters caught and cut down on the odor, too.

I strongly recommend using a respirator and a covering for head and ears. If the respirator does not cover the nose, use plugs in your nose. When I painted the underhood and rear deck of the Demon, I neglected this detail. I had Petty Blue nose hair for a couple of days. LOL

2 Darts, your right about the respirator. 3M makes a nice unit which has the filters for organic chemicals (the ones for most auto paints),I think they're only about $50.00. The filters are almost triangular shape and make sure you get a box of prefilters, they are cheap throw aways and allow you to use the expensive chemical filters for many paint jobs. The coveralls I use are those paper throw away type which have a hood so you will be completely covered except for around your eyes, you'll get 3 or 4 paint jobs out of them. I use an old pair of shoes that I keep around just for painting, they get pretty thick after a while. The paint diffusers work really well, its suprising to see how thick and plugged they get after a few paint jobs.... paint particulate that would be going out of your booth into the neighborhood. Mount the diffusers in a metal or wooden box in front of the exhaust fan, it'll keep your fan blades from getting thick and clogged up. Kev
 
The peeling is mostly on the hood and a little on the top. The sides are still shiny and there is no rust. Thanks for the response
 
The peeling is mostly on the hood and a little on the top. The sides are still shiny and there is no rust. Thanks for the response

If you just want to give it a splash and dash to sell then give it a good sanding then coat with a zink chromate primer to seal the old paint and have at her. Just make sure anywhere the paint is peeling that you get down to good paint first or strip that panel completely to be sure. It's no fun having a nice shiny new paint job start to bubble up in the first week.
 
paint difuesers? i was gonna do the whole home depot filters they use in home air conditionings? thats another item i hears works.
 
Check in the tech pages on www.bigblockdart.com as well they have a good thread about a home made booth. We did one made with some 2x4 and some 1x4 and a roll of plastic. Used a couple fliters and it work absolutly great.
Matt
 
What brand paint do you suggest? Can I get decent results without the base clear routine? I like the term "splash n dash". I'm gonna steal that one from ya.
 
have u tried asking some of the trade skools if u can use there booths ive panted 3 cars using the local trade skools booth he charged me 30 $ to ues it just a suggestion
 
paint difuesers? i was gonna do the whole home depot filters they use in home air conditionings? thats another item i hears works.
The home depot filters are great for incoming air, the diffusers are for out going fumes. They are made of paper and their design, as simple as they are, make the paint particles collect on the paper surface. They are extremely effective and it's amazing how clean the air coming out of the booth is.
 
If you can, run the booth, positive pressure. Grab an old squirrel cage fan . I'd be careful with a box electric fan pulling exhaust... you have a flammable media being pulled out by something electrically driven, think of the possibilities!

Crackedback
You're right about the squirrel cage fan if you can find one easily and find a way to mount it easily,they are usually pretty heavy for the amount of flow you would need. What makes the box fan nice is that it's light and easy to mount in a window or door and seal around it with cardboard and masking tape. Crude I know but safety wise I believe any elect fan motors in the last 10 years are probably induction motors and not brush type with sparks. Positive pressure is also desireable in a well set up booth with a clean rooftop intake which is relatively dust free, the nice part about the drawthrough "garage" booth is that if you use 3 or 4 filters at the bottom of the garage door and soak the area in front of the filters, the velocity of the incoming air is very low and less likely to draw in small insects and such. There are many ways to build a home made booth, this is just the kind I've found to be simple to build and have turned out some really nice paint jobs.
 
ok well today i got 3 home depot fans and 4 filters.
i have never heard of a paint diffuser so it scares me and i dont like it haha,
but yah all and all i figured two sucking in and one blowing out... get the one going out wet before i start painting and that way the moister and filter catch most the paint and have it pull through... it wont be a electric free paint booth because its a garage and it for a few hours of painting at the most in a house im renting haha so if something like this would work and be alrite im ok with it. most everything i do at work everyday is dangourous (oilfield) so whats a little more at home.. in my race car no less8)
Ya but i mite maul things overnight
 
In my opinion its is alot cheaper and easier to just rent a booth. I paint all my cars at work, but you could rent one for $100-200.
 
ok well today i got 3 home depot fans and 4 filters.
i have never heard of a paint diffuser so it scares me and i dont like it haha,
but yah all and all i figured two sucking in and one blowing out... get the one going out wet before i start painting and that way the moister and filter catch most the paint and have it pull through... it wont be a electric free paint booth because its a garage and it for a few hours of painting at the most in a house im renting haha so if something like this would work and be alrite im ok with it. most everything i do at work everyday is dangourous (oilfield) so whats a little more at home.. in my race car no less8)
Ya but i mite maul things overnight

Hamesdart
The kind of fan I was referring to is a large 24"or 30" square fan, usually comes with a 2 or 3 speed switch. You can buy the diffusers at most body shop suppliers. Don't let the name scare you, they're just made of brown paper in layers with thousands of slits cut into them. Make a frame out of plywood to mount them in. Keep in mind that you need adequate air flow to keep the atomized paint to air ratio low. Just like air /fuel ratio's in an engine it takes a certain amount of density to ignite, you don't want to be at that density. BE SAFE. What kind of paint equipment do you own(paint gun/ regulator/moisture trap etc.) What temperature is it now where you live, there are different reducers to use depending on temperature and humidity. What kind of paint are you using.
 
One word of advise, don't skimp on the respirator. Any paint ( especially the clear) that is Catalized containes Isocyonates (causes cancer an other nasty stuff) have fun painting, but be safe.
 
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