My DIY Spray Booth Journey

DreamKnight

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Dec 8, 2009
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Welp, I'm going to take a journey into making my own DIY Spray Booth so I'll use this thread to document that journey.

The whole goal to this DIY booth is to try and be cost effective, easy to make, when storage using minimal space yet when in use, roomy enough to be usable and of course the fact of what it is to be effectively functional! I could just buy one but I like the whole idea of making one.

So the journey start with research. The structure is the easy part. I can construct it out of wood or acrylic plastic or even using one of those storage boxes. Trying to figure the material that's easy to find which really can be all three. I'm leaning towards using acrylic sheets for looks and I've also had experience working with that material for my fish tanks. Either way, that's for later.

The hard part is finding a source to pulling enough air out of the spray area.

I've checked out fans from your local hardware store and decent and powerful are some of the stove fans but I wanna see if there's an easier alternative for construction.

So being a computer geek, I go back to my roots and see if I can go that route. I can pull a power supply out of an old computer box and power up a computer fan. There's your power supply (regulated even!) and it's already constructed and since I'm going to put one to two fans to this PS wattage isn't going to be a problem.

From what I've seen, a spray booth you'd by from the market pushed about 250-290CFMs for your average hobby spray booth. That's going to be tough finding one but I did find this:

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/de12tfexhisp.html

Price, just can't beat it for $30. For noise my new Iwata Smart Jet runs about 48 DBs. This fan screams out 65 DBs so it will be decently noisy but with a fan with that much power, there's no getting around it. However, to cut down the noise, we can go with the same maker with a lower powered fan but installing TWO. I saw a DIY post from another site on how a guy did his. If I went with two fans, I'd be looking at something like this:

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/de12ff.html

This would bring the price up to $50 on the fans with the combines pull of 300+CFMs

So that's where I'm at. I'm going to do more research on this since this is the most important factor to a spray booth.
 
Interesting. Very affordable but still researching the CFM it puts out. Marine Bilge Blowers:

s7_010960_renderset_01?$main-Large$.jpg
 
So latest research and have some more interesting ideas. I think I'm going to make it a downdraft booth vs a cross-draft version. If I do a downdraft version, you don't need as much CFM.

Found a great article on the math of an booth here.
http://www.briansmodelcars.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?TutorialID=23&CurPage=1

If all I need is 50 FPMs then something like 2 fans running at 150 CFM fan will do. I say 2 150 cfm fans because I'm thinking of a 2.5' wide and 2' depth booth. 2.5' for room for doing ships at around 1/400 scale. 2 150ish CFM fans also means I can stick to a computer power supply AND it can be a pretty silent spray booth.

I have a Titanic that an ex bought for me years ago for my birthday and have the hull I put together then and that was about the extent of how far I got with it but it gave me a good look at the type of models and how long they are that I would consider doing.

While doing more research, I started thinking about the construction of the walls of the booths. I came across DIY spray booths people us for spraying their cars and or bigger items than what we modellers do.

They use plastic sheeting and make a little self contained room.

I'm thinking why not go this way?

1. It should be pretty cheap.
2. I could make the "framing" with plastic pipes which is cheap or light pine wood AND I can rig it to be "collapsable" for storage.

Something in the concepts of this:
spraybooth-titletbn.jpg

The plastic sheets will only need to cover the sides and back, the top will have another filter and maybe a light but probably not even NEEDED if I'm using clear plastic.

The say for example in one article in making a spray booth like this is to use shower curtain lining. Which is nice and pretty steady and a decent size sheet would cost around $10. Should be able to make at least 3 sheet out of it that you can switch out when you get too much over spray on them. However, today I went to staples to grab a HD webcam and saw rolls of packing plastic sheets and that might be another option for being cheap and interchangeability.

So if the base of the spray booth stands at about 6" to 8" on top of my work table, that's almost face level for painting and it can always be adjusted to be lower simply by moving it to another table.

If the base is made out of the same type of tote container it'll be light weight and cheap. Something like:

http://www.staples.com/Iris-Ultimate-Weathertight-Tote/product_759401

Then I'd have to construct the floor "grid" in which I can slide filters under it. This part I'm still looking around at some options because the floors going to be wider than the actual base. OR can can double stack that kind of box side by side and seal it with silicon.

There's also another design using acrylic sheets I'm thinking of and I'll be doing a separate project for that one for a more advanced DIY spray booth. Acrylic is very attractive since you can clean paint off the side walls pretty easily, even with lacquer thinner.
 
Link to the one I built...........

http://public.fotki.com/ScottM/models/paint-booth/

MDF for the cabinet, pegboard for the painting surface, furnace filter, and a 100cfm bathroom fan.

Wired in the fan to a switch on the front, which usually stays on, as the fan and the lights are plugged into a power bar along with my compressor....so just leave them all on, and turn on the power bar.

If I had to do it again, I would probably integrate the lights into the top of the cabinet and run them off the switch that the fan is on as well.

Vented out the back using dryer hose, and out the window.

Since those pictures were taken, I have painted the entire inside white (makes it all brighter to see what you are working on), as well as used outdoor silicon window sealant in the joints to eliminate air coming through the joints (thus making the fan's job of extracting the fumes easier)

I know....bathroom fan, open windings. I have read, we have all read about people blowing themselves up using enamel or lacquer in their booths with a bathroom or range hood fan.

I have never had a problem with anything flammable in mine, and I have sprayed everything, enamel, lacquer, acrylic, Alclad, etc. I think the furnace filter helps, but I also don't spray much out of an aerosol can either, usually decanted into an AB bottle and sprayed with the airbrush, unless it is a rattle can primer or gloss coat usually.

I think those that have blown themselves up, we never hear the whole story, and alot of times it is with a spray bomb (no pun intended), and normally the propellant in them is more explosive/flammable than the actual paint.
 
Elm City Hobbies said:
I know....bathroom fan, open windings. I have read, we have all read about people blowing themselves up using enamel or lacquer in their booths with a bathroom or range hood fan.

Is your fan one of those with the magnetic rotor? Those won't spark if I understand correctly. And since you're mounting it on the bottom, you don't need that much CFM to pull down. Kinda why I'm thinking about doing what you did. Just easier to mount a bathroom fan with a bottom pull.

I kinda abandoned this project since my box fan reverse in the window works really well and I barely close the windows in LA. Only when it rains really hard and that barely even happens down here (I'm moving to Seattle I swear. I'm a huge lover of rain).

I'll probably jump back on it when I have time again. Someday. lol
 
No idea, but I doubt it, just one or two steps up from the bargain basement 50cfm bathroom fans from Home Depot.

It works well....but when there is a big fog of primer or gloss from a rattle can, it can take a bit to clear. I usually leave it on for a bit once I am done so it clears some lingering fumes out of the room, as well it is in the basement in my office with the shop (and the stash), so my wife never smells it.
 
I've been thinking about building one for a long time and have on paper many of what I think are decent designs, none of which have come to fruition (yet) due either to lack of funds, lack of shop tools, or lack of guts. :)
 

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