Need help with a Table Top Paint Booth

FYI, paint and lacquer fumes can build up quickly in a confined area, add an active furnace and it could spell disaster. I'd think about moving the location to an area with a window so you could install an exhaust fan to vent the fumes. Paint booths with fans are available commercially, check Walthers or Micro Scale inventories or just search them on the web.Good luck, painting your own cars and engines is very rewarding just make sure you can get the right decals.  Have fun!

Regards,

Joe Geiser

Joe

There is a window right where it will be going, and I could vent out that window.  I also can turn the furnace off for awhile when I do my paint jobs.  As for another location, there really isn't one in our basement.   

I have looked at commercial available ones, and for the cost I think I can build one for much less then what they are asking.

Jim

Absolutely vent the booth out the window and wear a mask with chemical filters. We look forward to pictures of your results.   Regards,  Pat B.

Jim, Please take what Joe said to hart. The furnace area is not a good area for any paint booth. If you must please make sure it is well vented directly outside. Yes you could turn the furnace off but if it has a pilot light that will still be on. What about the hot water heater, gas with a pilot light? In addition there are the cleaning chemicals. There is a story of a gentlemen that after painting and cleaning up decided to dispose of the chemicals in the floor drain. After he left the fumes built up, the furnace came on, and now he has a new house.

I know they are a lot of people that still paint in such areas, I have myself. It is just that we are concerned and don't want to loose anybody.

Al

Jim, Great, sounds like you have the safety issues handled. I paint a lot but never had a paint booth, find them to constricting. My paint area is directly in front of my window with the exhaust fan installed, I remove it when not painting,  on either side I have pull down window shades which completely cover the shelves, I hang a plastic tarb from the window down and over the bench top, setup takes about a minute. I can now spray directly into the fan without restriction of movement. The fan does a good job of venting the overspray the shades and plastic does the rest, never have paint where I don't want it. It works for me but you may feel more comfortable with a booth.

Regards,

Joe Geiser

At one time, I researched building my own spray booth.

Here are a few sites with some good info that may be of help to you...

http://www.briansmodelcars.com/tutorials/tutorial/23

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/808

I ended up not building one and chose to purchase the Artograph 1530 booth.  It is a great spray booth...perfect size and well worth the money.  I got it for just under $300...paid for by my first check from my YouTube video ads.

Here is a handy turntable for your booth...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-N-MANUAL-TURNTABLE-PAINTING-STAND-FOR-AIRBRUSH-AIR-BRUSH-MODEL-CRAFT-FIGURINE-/261047419956?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc7a38434

I built one. Works great!

I am no painter, but I do have an interest in how it is done so I bought a video on it and the fella used the inside of a cardboard box as his paint booth.

I know it's not very sexy, but that F3 looked great when he was done.

As for the ventilation issue mentioned above, again I'm not a HVAC tech but fumes can be very dangerous. In fact wood dust can cause an explosion every bit as distructive as that of gas. So those of us who do these sort of hobby projects need to be extremly conscious of all dangers in our work area.

What I would do is get in touch with people who manufacture these paint booths and the people like Testors who make the paint and ask them.

Good luck and happy painting, but be safe!

I built a small spray booth for water based paints out of a large cardboard box.

I cut holes in the bottom (which served as the back wall when the box was on its side) to match four six inch muffin fans. The fans were mounted to exhaust air from the box and powered by a Lionel 0100 HO transformer.

Then I cut down a furnace filter to fit the box, and slipped it inside, leaving it a couple of inches away from the bottom (back).

This worked fine for water based paint. The furnace filter caught the particals, and we were not concerned about fumes.

Even though it was cardboard it lasted until I picked up a small booth made by Badger.

you ought to consider buying a booth with a rear filter exhaust. I put mine in the garage and vented to the outside with a exhaust fan.

The booth came with an overhead light.

NOw what about a light heat lamp or a regular incandecent bulb to HEat up the painted model to "bake the Paint " IS that Playing with fire?

It very well can be playing with fire. That is why all heat lamps in a paint both are placed in an explosion proof housing. In fact, many large booths electrical systems are housed in what's called an explosion proof system. The pipe is a heavy gage steel with threaded connections like a hot water heating system. But, these systems are pressurized with 3 to ten psi of clean/dry air so as to insure that no flammable fumes come in contact with any potential electrical spark.

These are completly sealed systems and you can usally tell them by the rubber boots over all the switches. In the modern systems, post Mario days they do all control via GUI's on a computer screen, but the electrical systems are still closed and pressurized.

I'm not suggesting that we need something so serious at home or at our clubhouse but when a manufacture states that we need to do such and such for safe operation there is a reason for this.

Last February I was working with my table saw and was doing something that I have done a thousand times before. The istructions with any saw is very clear on how to handel the meterial to be cut, but I did it a thousand times and never had a problem.

At the emergency room as the doctor was applying the nine stiches to my finger, I stated how stupid I was, he said that I was very lucky. The last guy that came in with a power saw injury lost his hand, yea he did it a thousand times as well.

My point is that safety is a habit, how safe we are depends on if we practice good or bad habits. The hundred times you get away with it in no way makes up for the one act that bites you. In short ten thousand atta-boys equal one aw S___!

Talk to the experts and ask them.

Be safe and have fun, we lost one member from these pages due to an avoidable  accident and that was far to many.

Before building something checkout. http://www.chicagoairbrushsupply.com/

they basically sell wholesale to everyone and are much less expensive than Walthers. Micromark or LHS. Another benefit... they have just about everything,

Take heed of all the cautions. The vent fan should be brushless and the exhaust tube should be grounded. AS for you, you need a mask no matter how good the fan is.

I could also purchase a heavy duty tarp and hang it between the furnace and the area where I will be painting, like a make shift wall.