Painting Equipment

Well, it should be filtered both ways. 'In' to the chamber for the ultimate finish without any dust in it, and the 'out' filters are paint pads to keep the paint out of the fan blades, but - Go look at the paint booth at an auto body shop, study the details, and you start to understand the scope of the problem...

I would just rig a simple "open" booth to catch the overspray, and don't worry too much about dust. Because a closed booth gets complex and expensive real fast. If you are going to have a person step inside an isolated room and spray around volatiile materials (ranging from flammable to explosive when atomized during application) you HAVE to follow the same safety design constraints.

It has to be non-combustible construction in case of a flash fire, and not easily collapsed on top of the painter and work by the pressure wave, so a lot of temporary methods like draped visqueen plastic over furring strips is OUT. You need a way out, you need explsion-proof lighting (or the fixture outside the room shining in through a sealed window), you need to design against static buildup that could ignite the fumes...

You could build a little paint booth at home, but the project would eclipse the model you are painting. It would work with a freestanding sturdy frame of 2X4 studs with light sheet-metal screwed on the inside, and a Lexan window on top for the outside light fiixture. Prehung house door or two for egress hung opening out, and ball-spring latches only so they can pop open to release the blast overpressure.

You need pro-grade fire extinguishers ready at hand, strategically placed, and enough of them to handle the volume of materials. And a garden hose in case that still isn't enough.

Your exhaust fan motors have to be outside the airstream, and make sure the static can drain from the blower wheel/blade. And ground the sheet-metal walls, and the hook or table the work sits on, and make sure static can drain away from the paint gun...

If you spray two-part catalyzed paint, you have to use real non- combustible paint pads on the exhaust system. (Not just furnace filters.) These paints get hot as they cure, and you don't want your paint booth to spontaneously combust on you.

And no spraying any exotic aircraft paints with nasty solvents that'll kill you (like DuPont Imron) inside any booth without a full postive pressure respirator rig. Bought, not cobbled together - there are places to scrimp, this isn't one of them.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman
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Good advice, Bruce. Painting, especially with today's paints can be VERY dangerous. It can also be illegal so my advice would be to check with the local authorities as to what you are allowed to do. In Californicate that would be very little without professional equipment and all kinds of permits.

I've been off the group for a while. Got tired of all the political crap. Doesn't look like much has changed. How are things with you?

Jim Chandler

Reply to
Jim Chandler

Ferchrissakes, a good disposable overall, gloves and the correct filter cartridges will cope with Isocyanate catalysed paints. I've only sprayed a couple of gallons of the stuff over the last few weekends and I haven't died yet.

PS positive pressure masks are banned in some parts of the world, because you can't guarantee there will be no recirculation. Go figure.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Selective corner-cutting is encouraged in r.c.metalworking - but you have to understand the problem before you go 'Off the reservation' for a lower cost solution. You look at what is required for a commercial operation, then you find a way to do the same thing without spending a bundle doing it.

Like the lights - If you put a cheap sheet of polycarbonate plastic or laminated glass, you don't need an explosion-proof light fixture.

The booth doesn't have to be all metal - it just has to be non combustible enough to not catch fire easily, and fairly sturdy so a flash fire from the solvents doesn't collapse it on top of you. Other than that, feel free to improvise.

It could be a permnanently built room on a house or garage, with drywall walls - but you have to provide a blowout panel or two in case you get that flash fire. Removing the door striker and using a simple ball catch lets it pop open.

And you always work with the EXIT door to your back so you have a clear egress path - you don't want to go through the fire to get out, that's bad form.

Yes, and I know a finish carpenter who used to make big bucks painting airplanes. And those exotic paints screwed him up something bad, even with a respirator - he has hand tremors that were funny when Don Knots filmed "The Shakiest Gun In The West" but aren't fun at all when you have to live with them the rest of your life.

He had to walk away from the paint booth and develop a totally different craft. Luckily the tremors don't keep him from doing a great job at finish carpentry.

They can make the perfect safety system. But if it's implemented and used by a moron who puts the pump (and it's fresh air intake) inside a cloud of the compromised atmosphere...

Think first about what you are doing and WHY you are doing it, and you won't make stupid mistakes like that. If nothing else, you read down the checklist in the instructions for the PPV Pump every time you set it up. And when they get to the line about "Make sure to position the unit well away from the exhaust outlet of the spray booth"...

And it's a lot easier to ban something than try to legislate that all workers have to use their brain and follow the instructions.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Very good information, you are knowledgeable and safety minded! I think I'll just spray in the open and put up with the dust because all that trouble is bull shit. Thanks Bruce, MK

Reply to
MJKolodziej

Not necessarily. I'd say try one of the cheap ones first. They're so cheap they can be regarded as disposable, and you just might find one "good enough" for your jobs and materials. Harbor Freight (and others) sell a knockoff of the Binks detail gun for about $20. I've used it for lots of ho-hum little jobs like bicycles. I reserved the Sharpe for base-clear jobs on automobiles where the paint costs north of $100/gallon. I also have one of the HF gravity feed HVLP guns that go at various sale prices. It works quite well with thinner material like lacquer ... and probably airplane dope.

BTW, the prices I saw on Sharpe were jaw-dropping. I didn't pay 1/4 of that 15 years ago. A local supplier of auto body supplies sharply discounts Sharpe around June when the Vo-Tech students graduate, so that's when I bought.

Reply to
Don Foreman

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