questions about painting respirators, fume safety and hobby paint booth filter cleaning

I think the best solution is to upgrade your booth and change filters frequently.   That solvent vapor you smell and paint particle cloud you see are obviously escaping the booth and will contaminate/settle on everything in the room.   Getting it out of the space entirely is far superior to any filter on a respirator.  

As an alternative, there are certainly airbrushes that will spray thinned lacquers and enamels easily at 15psi and produce very little overspray.  They also won't give you grief on inside corners as you detailed in another post.

It may be time to change the filters on your respirator and verify the seal.  If the cartridges get blocked, you'll start drawing air around the mask and render it useless.   For comparison, I use those same filters and can spray with a full sized automotive style gun loaded with nasty 2K paint inside a 10x10 booth and smell nothing.

IMO, use of solvent paints requires an investment in the proper equipment.  If that's not an option, go to acrylics and deal with the quirks.  

I don't know what your doing for sure,but I don't use a booth and I never get huge "clouds of visible vapor" perhaps too much PSI or too much paint.I have an Iwata HP-CS it's all about control.

I use a 3M respirator,either a paint store or Amazon should have your filters.

Respirator cartridges will last longer if you put them in a Ziploc bag and squeeze as much air out as possible.  We painted 2, 36-40 ft motorhomes a day, And could get a week out of a pair by putting the whole respirator in a coffee can with the plastic snap lid.

Sounds like a pair of safety glasses might be in order, or maybe skiing goggles.

Sounds like you don't have much suction on the booth.  If decent at moving air you could try a thin furnace filter in front of the booth ones.  Would help if we know what you're using for booth, fan, filters, if ducted outside or even if ducted at all.

I live in a 1-br apartment and space is compromised. The paint station vents through the living room window. 

Here is my booth which uses the factory filter.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MGGYH2W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's not economically feasible for me to replace the booth filter often. There was a video on YouTube that demsontrated soaking the filter in a bucklet with water and some product to dissolve the paint residue in the filter. I'll have to try to hunt it down again:

oh, here it is...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGs4-DFoUA

The boy says to use Simple Green as a filter cleaner. It's also not feasible for me to replace painting mask filters often. I don't have a Bill Gates income level. I'm painting little plastic models, not full-size cars. 

They also won't give you grief on inside corners as you detailed in another post.

I've already mitigated the grief on inside corners by using the modified Donn Yost method as in my later thread on my airbrush practice results, which please see. The magic against runs, puddles, drips and errors is LACQUER THINNER, not Testors enamel thinner. That and starting off with a mist coat or two so the paint pigment can eventually take hold evenly. Using the airbrush cranked up at higher pressures makes that nasty thinner cloud but that is the price to be paid to get a neat paint job that is relatively easy in method, equipment and materials. AndyX has a super-sucking custom built-in paint booth in his private home which I can't have in my rented apartment. I paid close to $200 for the folding extra wide booth I have already. 

I have a very simple homemade booth out of a recycled kitchen cabinet. It uses $2.50 furnace filters that I throw away every 3 months if I do a lot of painting. If you want more info, send me a PM and I'll give you all the details and send some pics too.

Jim 

Stay Safe.

Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. What you have is not feasible for an apartment dweller living on disabilty income. 

I'm using the AndyX method which absolutely calls for 35 psi.

I'm using this booth (not cheap, nearly $200) which is wide but not very deep. 

Amazon.com: OPHIR Super Power Airbrush Spray Booth Kit Portable Paint Spray Booth with Filter LED Lights for Model Hobby,Crafts,Nails,Cake,T-Shirt

People here seem to have trouble understanding that I live in a 1-bedroom apartment and the equipment, methods and materials I use have to be limited for that setting. 

I cannot spray outdoors in dusty, windy Oklahoma. It's too cold outside to paint outside now anyway and summers are very humid. My landlord has forbid my use of a tent for painting outside on the apartment complex property. 

My paint station has not one but two fans. Even so, a large cloud of mist forms right in front of the booth opening momentarilly while paint is being sprayed. I'm also using LACQUER THINNER in my paint solution. It takes a couple of seconds after stopping the airbrush for that cloud of mist to totally disappear. The purpose of the booth is to vent paint odors outside and protect the apartment interior from overspray. I'm actually a chemical-sensitive person. 

I should say a cloud of MIST. It looks like heavy steam. It hovers in front of my face momentarilly while spraying. It takes a second or two for this mist to disappear right after the airbrush stops. There is a delay in the ventilator fans. The airbrush on 35 psi puts out such a high volume of material at once that it outpaces even the TWO fans in my paint station. This high air flow is needed to atomize the paint solution very finely. This is the key to using that almost foolproof AndyX method. Yes, this method has some drawbacks by making that cloud of annoying mist that COMES BACK TOWARD MY FACE and consuming a lot of paint also. Higher pressure means higher rate of paint flow. There are some compromises in model painting. 

You seem to be locked into that video and what he does that works for him.  That much material and air pressure will tend to cause the issue you describe.  Not much to improve the situation with those parameters.  If the booth sucks most of it out in a few seconds, then it sounds like it's just fine.

Try practicing with different air pressures and thinning ratios.  You'll find a happy medium, which will save a lot of material, as well as cut down on the cloud.

Several folks here have suggested the above paragraph, but you seem to be welded solid to that video.  Not much more we can suggest, if you don't want to take time to try different ways of doing things.  You ask for advice, And don't want to take or try it.

I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings, but that's the way it is.  I live in a 12x60 mobile home, by myself now, and can't work anymore due to heart issues. So I'm in pretty much the same boat you are. I worked in the auto body and paint trade for 40 years, and the materials changed drastically over that time, and continue to do so.  You have to change methods if what you're doing isn't working.

I concur with Goldhammer.  35 PSI for airbrushing and shooting these huge clouds of paint makes no sense to me.  If you're going to airbrush like that, you might as well start using rattle cans.

Forget the videos on YouTube and sit down and experiment with different pressures and mixtures of paint/thinner to find what works best for your situation.  That's what I did to get a good technique going.  I took a bunch of spare parts from previous builds and spent a couple of weeks, here and there, trying different pressures, paints, thinners, etc.  I kept track of results and drying/curing times and got a pretty good system going.  I also did adhesion tests to determine which techniques stood up the best to masking, even with the extremely aggressive adhesive on Dymo tape.  The way I airbrush now, I don't even use a spray booth at all because there is virtually no overspray.  The paint all ends up on the model.  I don't have the huge, visible clouds of paint coming out and swirling around...and it always makes me cringe when I see an "expert" on a YouTube video painting like that.  Makes me wonder why they even have airbrushes if they're going to sledgehammer the paint on.  I shoot all of my paint at a maximum pressure of 20 PSI.  For painting the insides of curved surfaces, I lower my pressure even further, usually down to 10 PSI.  The lower pressures make it so you don't have paint swirling around and building into these huge, partially-dry droplets that create that textured surface you mentioned.  I'm mostly using lacquer paints from MRP now because I love them so much.  Still don't have fumes to deal with because of the pressures I'm shooting paint at.

We're all here to try to help with suggestions...and that's my suggestion, to ignore the YouTube videos.  Those techniques are obviously not working.

Eaglecash867

The way I airbrush now, I don't even use a spray booth at all because there is virtually no overspray.  The paint all ends up on the model.  I don't have the huge, visible clouds of paint coming out and swirling around...

That's where I try to be with my airbrushing, too.  I have a booth, but don't feel the need for a mask/respirator.  The small amount of overspray that is generated is easily collected.   There is no paint residue settling on the front tray of the booth or the floor or the lenses of my Rx glasses.  The OP has made several references to saving money.   Fair enough, but paint in the air or the filter is paint that will never be on a model.   That's wasteful, too.

MJY65

The OP has made several references to saving money.   Fair enough, but paint in the air or the filter is paint that will never be on a model.   That's wasteful, too.

Yup.  When I decant my Tamiya primer cans and use that to airbrush the primer instead, I get probably 20 times as much use of that single can and even the most delicate of details on the model are preserved.  Both things are money in the bank.  That wouldn't happen if I was shooting it at 35 PSI in huge clouds.  Like I've said before on this subject, the YouTube "experts" often have a pretty loose interpretation of what is considered a high quality finish.  People might change their minds about those videos if close-in, high resolution photos with good lighting were taken afterward to show proof of the results.  Anything looks good if the photo or video is the size of a postage stamp.  They're just modelers like the rest of us, and quite frankly, there's a hell of a lot more knowledge and expertise on this forum than on YouTube.

I will now try paint practice on dispoable material like plastic cups with lower presuures to see if the finish comes out as least as nicely as it did under high pressures. My goal:

The produce the nicest-looking model possible with minimum risk to human health while trying also to be as economically feasible as possible. It sounds like a balancing act. 

I have finally found a method that gives me a nice-looking finish. It's now a matter of finding efficiency. 

It is a balancing act act for sure, and all of us have a different center of gravity where we find that balance.

Don't give up on it.

I agree with goldhammer's comment 100%. There are soooo many youtube videos out there it's not funny. It may work with one youtuber and another method works with another and it goes on and on.... It never ends. Each believe their method is teh best or easiest to do. I disagree. No one is an expert.

So my single advice for you?

Never take stock in their methods - I certainly don't. Best thing to do is get the basic idea on what to do, how to do it, experiment & test on a spoon or junk kit and see for yourself what's easier for you.