Home grown paint booth/car progress

65fastbackresto

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Apr 13, 2007
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I haven`t posted in a while, but I`ve been busy, heres a few pics of my progress. The home made paint booth totally outdid my expectations. I polyester primed this morning and expoxy yesterday. Been fun after a few weeks of sanding.

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Dust wasn`t much of a problem

I`ll admit though, after the 2nd coat when the floor started drying I did get a little dust and had to retack before the 3rd coat. But I was amazed it wasn`t any worse then it was.
 
How were the fumes?

I am contemplating building a frame inside of my garage and wrapping it in plastic. I will be building a large'ish garden shed, so it would be dual purpose. Use it as a paint booth, then use the frames for the shed afterwards. :D
 
I used the fan as an exhaust fan

Blowing out of the room generating negative air pressure. But I wouldn`t use this same setup for painting, I`d plastic the walls, roof, and floor if I were going to paint inside it. I think a guy could do a pretty good job like that if he had enough light.
 
When primering a little dirt won't hurt as it can be sanded out. It is during topcoat application that dirt becomes a real problem. Plastic and lots of lighting are your friends:

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Manufacturer's paint specs hung for quick reference (for both basecoat and clear coat):

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A sheet of masking paper was taped to the plastic to use for pattern testing the spray gun.

Although I hate the looks of them, flystrips were a lifesaver as the garage was full of them the day before. Not a single fly found there way into the end product:

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Other side of entrance door that connected to another room was used as an exit:

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Fans are in a outside doorway and are covered both inside and outside with filters. Air is being blown out:

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The OP's big fan would have been a better choice but none where available at our local supplier the day before I wanted to paint. Without a professional type filtering system, I am not sold on blowing outside air into the paint booth.

A simple wooden frame was built out of inexpensive 2x4's to hold the plastic, fans, and filters. Duct tape is used for sealing.

Air inlet:

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Additional fans were put here (pointing out) to remove the remaining spray that was in the air just after the final coat. Again, a 2x4 frame was used.

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Contractors bags make great wheelcovers PLUS once you are done you can use them to gather up all the dis-guarded masking.

Oh, the final product once assembled:

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i thought for the typical home paint booth that positive pressure was the way to go.

if you are sucking air out of the booth, then there is a chance that you will be pulling in dirt/lint/dust through all the unfiltered cracks.

i setup a central air squirrel cage blower to push air in. i used the garage door and built filters for the exit (mainly to keep bugs out).

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I used box fans pushing air into the booth. When you put a filter on a fan, the differential pressure is the same whether you are pushing air in (filtering particles)
or sucking air out (capturing overspray). Benefit with pushing air in is the is no vapors going through the fan. Another benefit of a positive pressure booth is it will
blow air out of any leaks you may have in the booth as opposed to a negative pressure booth sucking in trash from a leak.

Box fans have no brushes to generate a spark so the time there could be a problem is when you turn them on or adjust the speed. This can be eliminated by
turning the fans on BEFORE you start shooting and leave them on until all vapors are extracted from the booth. I was able to get good air flow using 2 on high
but 3 or 4 fans would have been better. 2 fans kept the booth pretty clear to see how the paint was going on even when shooting the clear coat.