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
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
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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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 s*it. Thanks Bruce, MK
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.
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