airbrush cabinet

Well ... how simple?

1. The simplest one I've ever used was a discarded carton from a TV set. Not only large enough for practical purposes, the cost couldn't be beat.

1. More rugged is a simple wooden box. Any even half-competent woodworker can build one, even with hand tools. Using pre-cut plywood panels from your local "lumber yard" makes it trivial.

2. If you want ventilation, you should have fans that will never create sparks so they can't ignite paint vapors. There are some computer fans with so-called "brushless" motors that are perfect for this. The best supplier I know is an electronics house
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   on "brushless" and you'll get over a hundred hits. The ones that I bought last year are 48 volt DC units with over 100 CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) air flow for less than a dozen bucks apiece. You should add filtering before the fans. You can get the filter paper from
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   build your own frames.

1. Commercial units run 0-0 for hobby-sized boxes so it's a money-vs.-time trade-off.

Norm

Where did you get your 48VDC supply?

I've seen one built from extruded foam - folded up when not in use. It did have an exhaust fan, but I don't recall how it was mounted. Did you Google?

Thank you for your reply and advice. It is true, you can find anything on the Internet, you just have to know what you are looking for and how to contact someone who can narrow down the world a bit with the correct terminology for searches and/or hyperlinks. The box bit I more or less figured out - it was the ventilation bit that was problematic. I went to the Jameco link that you kindly provided and I recognize the little brushless computer fans as I've seen them before in a surplus store that I sometimes scounge in. I will try Micromark for the filters as you suggested. Time really isn't an issue as I have recently retired and now have lots of time to tinker with things. Thank you for your suggestions.

With your fan and filters, you still really need to vent your airbrush cabinate out doors. If, like me, you use your garage for painting, look into venting the cabinate out doors through one of those dryer type vent devices. You really don't want to be venting the solvent fumes and thinner fumes into a closed space in the house or garage or train room or workshop. Those fumes are _NOT_ good for you, no are the particulates / pigments some of which will escape and evade your filters.

Search the model train magazine index and you'll come up with a bunch of hits:

built a plywood booth from plans in Model Railroader (I think August '83 ) with a squirrel cage blower from Grainger. The blower is a tad expensive (about $40-$50 thirteen years ago) but is more than adequate for the job. Can't imagine anything from Jameco moving enough air. A furnace filter cut in half, dryer vent and fluorescent light completes the booth.

shar> Does anyone out there have plans or instructions for building a simple

sharont spake thus:

What you need depends on a couple of things. What kind of paint are you spraying? And where are you doing this?

If you're spraying water-based paints, like Accu-Paint or acyrlics, then you probably don't need anything other than a box of some kind, which can be as rudimentary or as fancy as you like.

If you're spraying solvent-based paint, then you need to vent the fumes and overspray, which I suspect you already know.

My own solution: a very crude box, literally a big cardboard box, to which I attached a length of dryer vent. At the ventral end of the vent is a smaller box with a couple of them brushless DC computer fans others have mentioned. Contrary to what someone here said, they provide adequate air volume for my purposes. I'd put the fan box in an outside doorway and airbrush away.

Some folks will even tell you that you *must* have an explosion-proof motor for such an application. While there is some danger of fire or explosion when spraying volatile stuff like lacquer, all I can say is that I never once had a problem with my rig. If you were using a full-size spray gun with lacquer, then I'd say yes, you really ought to have an explosion-proof fan. (You can buy these from places like Grainger in the U.S.) But for a small amount of fumes from an airbrush, this isn't necessary.

I've long dreamed about building the ultimate airbrush station: a cabinet with the compressor down below, a spray booth with overhead and side lighting (fluorescent under glass or plexiglass), a vent, all switches conveniently grouped, a hook for hanging the brush with a drip pan below it, a small work area for mixing and pouring ...

Tough decision: should Tom Cruising or John Revolta be first into the vat?

Steve Caple spake thus:

My vote is for David Miscavige, but that's a different rant for a different day.

A stove vent hood which I see in trash piles in front of houses that are having the kitchen remodeled. A dryer vent,dryer hose,and a furnace filter. Add 3 sides and a bottom to the vent hood made out of 1/4" plywood and you have a spray booth. As far as dimensions go check

they have pics of 2 sizes of spray booths. They tell you the height,width,and depth of each booth. So print out a pic of the booth you like. Then cut a strip of paper is the same length that the spray booth in the pic is wide. Fold the piece of paper in half and mark the fold with a pencil and write 1/2 of what the width of the spray booth is. Then fold one side of the paper to the mark in the first fold. Mark that fold and write 1/4 of what the width of the spray booth is. Then fold one end of the paper to the last mark you made and mark that fold 1/8 of what the width of the spray booth is. Do the folding again and mark it 1/16 of the width. Example if the spray booth is 24" wide then the first fold is 12" the second fold is 6" the third fold is 3" and the fourth fold is 1-1/2". So now you have made a ruler and can measure all of the spray booth. So you now know every dimension of the spray booth by using the ruler you made. Simple huh?

It is always the simple things that are the hardest to conceive. A dryer vent is not only something that I understand but something that I already have. I closed one off in the basement a number of years ago when I bought the house in order to move laundry area to the other side of the basement. After I got your message, I paced off the old area and took off a sheet of panelling and there it was. Now all I have to do is remove the insulation from the vent pipe and replace the cover on the outside and then relocate my painting area over to that side of the basement. Your point about particulates is well taken. I mix tinted mica powders in some paints to get pearlized looks but I always wear N95 masks and brush these on because of the dangers breathing around mica powder. Mixing and brushing them in a vented cabinet would appear to be safer. Have you had any experience airbrushing with fine mica powdered paints? I have a Badger 150 air brush and a Badger Crescendo

175-7 airbrush and a compressor. Thank you.

It is always the simple things that are the hardest to conceive. A dryer vent is not only something that I understand but something that I already have. I closed one off in the basement a number of years ago when I bought the house in order to move laundry area to the other side of the basement. After I got your message, I paced off the old area and took off a sheet of panelling and there it was. Now all I have to do is remove the insulation from the vent pipe and replace the cover on the outside and then relocate my painting area over to that side of the basement. Your point about particulates is well taken. I mix tinted mica powders in some paints to get pearlized looks but I always wear N95 masks and brush these on because of the dangers breathing around mica powder. Mixing and brushing them in a vented cabinet would appear to be safer. Have you had any experience airbrushing with fine mica powdered paints? I have a Badger 150 air brush and a Badger Crescendo

175-7 airbrush and a compressor. Thank you.

It is always the simple things that are the hardest to conceive. A dryer vent is not only something that I understand but something that I already have. I closed one off in the basement a number of years ago when I bought the house in order to move laundry area to the other side of the basement. After I got your message, I paced off the old area and took off a sheet of panelling and there it was. Now all I have to do is remove the insulation from the vent pipe and replace the cover on the outside and then relocate my painting area over to that side of the basement. Your point about particulates is well taken. I mix tinted mica powders in some paints to get pearlized looks but I always wear N95 masks and brush these on because of the dangers breathing around mica powder. Mixing and brushing them in a vented cabinet would appear to be safer. Have you had any experience airbrushing with fine mica powdered paints? I have a Badger 150 air brush and a Badger Crescendo

175-7 airbrush and a compressor. Thank you.

It is always the simple things that are the hardest to conceive. A dryer vent is not only something that I understand but something that I already have. I closed one off in the basement a number of years ago when I bought the house in order to move laundry area to the other side of the basement. After I got your message, I paced off the old area and took off a sheet of panelling and there it was. Now all I have to do is remove the insulation from the vent pipe and replace the cover on the outside and then relocate my painting area over to that side of the basement. Your point about particulates is well taken. I mix tinted mica powders in some paints to get pearlized looks but I always wear N95 masks and brush these on because of the dangers breathing around mica powder. Mixing and brushing them in a vented cabinet would appear to be safer. Have you had any experience airbrushing with fine mica powdered paints? I have a Badger 150 air brush and a Badger Crescendo

175-7 airbrush and a compressor. Thank you.

Well, I cheated -- two ways: 1. Since they're DC, they'll run on lower voltages too so I found a 32V AC transformer, a bridge rectifier, and a capacitor and made a supply that's roughly 32 * square-root(2) = 45V. 2. Taking the AC line directly, that's 120V AC. Putting that into a bridge rectifier and capacitor filter gives roughly 170V DC. If you string

4 motors in series, that's 42 V apiece which is also close enough.

Norm