About ten years ago, I built this simple spray booth out of a plastic storage tub and a bathroom fan, among other parts. It's not great but it does blow the fumes out the window. I had gotten into the habit of not using it much, mostly because it's a pain to set up when you want to just airbrush for a few minutes. My process was to go ahead and spray the parts, then open a window, leave the room and close the door. I do always use a respirator when spraying enamels or lacquers.
. by theirishavenger, on Flickr
. by theirishavenger, on Flickr
Last week I did the usual, laying down a coat of lacquer-based blue on a TBM Avenger. However, I spent more time in the room afterwords catching up on emails, Facebooking, etc., and I had taken the respirator off. Initially I felt ok, but when I took the kids to karate, I started feeling really dizzy and confused. Just out of it. When I finally figured out the cause, I could have kicked myself. It took a day to fully recover.
So, the lesson here is: do not get careless or comfortable with personal protection measures. I will definitely be more stringent from now on. So here are a few pics of the old spray booth. I have some instructions to build version 2.0, which incorporates a charcoal canister filtering system. That will be the next project. I feel like such an idiot now.