Building your own Paint Booth: Was Re: Badger Paint Booth is a Bad Product

I know most old timers here like the glue/paint buzz almost as much as the model itself. And it has that certin satisfaction in the smell. Ah... the smell of progress......................

First be craeful - dust in air can be highly explosive. You can have a flamable material with lots of air around each particle. Too big a volume and you'll have a hugh fan on your hands.I built a 3 foot cube for a booth some years ago. Fan is outside at the exit. A standard metal cloths dryer vent duct is used. I put Copper screen on both sides of the fan to prevent falme propagation, and was careful in selecting a fan that won't have a open motor making sparks in the first place. I placed the ait duct on the left wall near the back and bottom. I'm right handed and spray towards the bottom and left. Even witht the fan - fumes come back into the room - wear an approved charcoal breathing device, and maybe safety glasses. Even acrylics put dust in the air you don't want to breath. I built a frame ot of good quality (read this to mean straight) wood from home depot. A sheet of wood was used as the outer shell where I mounted the duct. The rest is covered in foam board. A small edge wall on the front has brackets to hold air brushes.

I have spot lights mpunted behind me - outside the high vapor area in the box itself.

I've had somewhat good luck using a water wall when sanding resing. Aim the rotation of the sanding drum at a sheet of wood or plastic witha stream of water making a liquid surface flowing down the walll that absorbs the particles. At first I used a sink for this. The roto router guy had this weird look next time I got the drains routed. A fish tank pump and small garbage can work without clogging the plumbing with a grease and resin mixture. The resin dust eventuall settles. Again based on the smell alone I wear a charcoal fiilter mask.

Val Kraut

I agonized over which way to run the airflow in my homemade spray booth that I posted a message on yesterday. Here is my thinking. I do not like the booths that suck the air downward. I do not want overspray settling on my painted object. I actually prefer upflow. However, I intended to build a light into the top of this booth, so an upflow did not seem practical. I then decided to have air exit through filter in rear, giving a front to back flow. This is a compromise, but seems to work well.

I recently changed the (furnace) filter in my unit. NO evidence of any paint behind filter. I notice that much of the smell is reduced in any filtered booth. I suspect that much of the volatiles in the air evaporate from the large surface areas of the small particles. Thus, when using a booth, there may be less combustibles in flow. I know I have used muffin fans, which I believe are brushless, which also helps avoid danger of motor sparking in vapor.

Hard to access this without an actual measurement. The dust will get trapped in the filter - but not the fumes. What I was recommending was a copper screen on both sides of the fan - with no open air paths around it. If the fan started combustion the screen should quench it. This is the way mine safety lanterns were constructed. You had a candle or oil lamp inside a screen cage. If there were gases in the mine the combustion set off by the candle couldn't probogate through the screen and continue into the mine as a whole. One way or thew other be careful. Fumes that don't gwet exhausted could be set off by your furnace etc. The trick is to get the fumes out, and to wear a safety mask (charcoal) to keep from breathing in the residue.

Val Kraut