Spray booth question.

Graham Green

Have you thought about redesigning it so it could be packaged/sold as a FlatPack, think IKEA, you have a ready made customer base on here and other modelling sites on the web for this item. 

Wow EJ--your booth is awesome. Excellent job building it.

Because you'll create a vacuum inside your house if you vent it outside. If you don't vent outside , you'll need large and expensive charcoal filters If you spray solvent based paints.  Filter MUST go before the motor.

Even vented outside; you're going to starve the fan because your booth size isn't big enough to feed enough air to it.  Think breathing through a straw. In addition, the velocity of that air moving through the opening of the booth is likely to make paining difficult. Especially fine detail work. 

LED lights are the way to go now. They generate less heat and are more  efficient than fluorescent. Equal or even Less cost per lumen.  Drawback is they are harder to source locally if you don't live in a metro area or big city. The Internet will bring whatever you want to your door, but holding /seeing a product while designing is quite helpful. 

WOW! Now that's a really nice spray booth. I applaud you on your sheet metal craftsmanship. I am fairly handy, but I would never attempt a project like that. Plus, my hands would be cut to shreds. 

Graham Green

Now that’s what you call a spray booth, excellent design and construction, well done. Shows what can be done, with a bit of forethought. Have you thought about redesigning it so it could be packaged/sold as a FlatPack, think IKEA, you have a ready made customer base on here and other modelling sites on the web for this item. There are many who want the best gear available and would be willing to part with the dollars as well, for something as good as this. Would you happen to be a — Sheet-metal worker — by any chance?

Yeah, I thought about it, but decided againsed it. I had been retired about 10 years already when I built this and really didn't want to get into that any more.

I was a liscensed builder for about 45 years and was exposed to most all the building trades. Jack of all trades - master of none I guess, although custom cabinets, fancy stairways and replacement/restoration of very high end trimwork was my personal specailty. My brother ran his own heating and cooling company and also had a sheet metal shop, so I picked that up pretty well. My company also did facilities maintenance work for industrial plants in the area and remodeling of various resturaunts like Long John Silvers and Pizza Huts.

Don Stauffer

One thing I did on my most recent booth is cut panels of foamcore to cover bottom and sides.  The inside surfaces of a booth get pretty dirty with paint and paint dust.  The foamcore panels are just press fit with double sided tape so I just cut new ones for replacement when they get dirty.  For the most part my booth is like the one BillG56 referred to, just a little taller and with a light on top.

Good idea. I've been using white paper from a roll of butcher paper I have, held in place with some magnets. I was gonna make some cutting templates, but never did. I tried some white stuff they used to spray indide the booths at work. It was supposed to peel off leaving the metal clean, but it turned out to be a real pain so I never did that again.

EJ

One thing I did on my most recent booth is cut panels of foamcore to cover bottom and sides.  The inside surfaces of a booth get pretty dirty with paint and paint dust.  The foamcore panels are just press fit with double sided tape so I just cut new ones for replacement when they get dirty.  For the most part my booth is like the one BillG56 referred to, just a little taller and with a light on top.

I built a paint spray booth following the instructions and purchasing the necessary parts on this site:

https://vent-works.com/blogs/the-ventilation-blog/15945741-diy-hobby-spray-booth

It was a little pricey but went together easily and works well.  The instructions are also top-notch.

I posted this a few years back before the photobucket thing, so all the pics are gone. So I'll just repost here.

Might give you some ideas to augment what you have in mind.

I wanted to do this right the first time, so did a lot of research and looking at commercially built booths. I worked in maintenance for an office furniture company with many spray booths in the finishing room, so I could ask questions. This would be a mini booth by their standards. I've been very pleased with the result. It was like building a 1/12 scale spray booth.

This was made from material I had around the shop except for a few small items. I estimated it would cost about $300.00 if you had to buy everything. The blower was a fiberglass unit, a take off from an explosion proof exhaust system from a lab remodel. I made it big enough to accomodate a 1/350 scale aircraft carrier. It is 36" wide, 24" tall excluding the ductwork, 24" deep at the bottom and 18 1/2" deep at the top and lighted.

I wired three electrical boxes on the wall to the right of the booth. The top one is for the light fixture, the middle one for the exhaust blower, the bottom one for the air compressor. Each is a duplex receptical with the top half switched and the bottom half always hot to be able to plug in a small fan, vacuum cleaner, portable electric heater or othe misc stuff.

The only thing I would do diffently, (and I might still do it) is mount the blower, connected to the booth with sealed metal pipe, in a seperate room, to reduce the sound level.

I'll just post the picks in the order of construction. Any questions Give me a holler.

The exterior hood.

EJ

I'd probably do this.

Since you are not moving, or even dissassembling this thing, put the fan off somewhere that is mounted on a vibration absorbing base. connect your out take in the booth to it with a flexible duct. Definitety mount a filter at the point where the duct leaves the booth. Usually you want at least two layers. A fairly fine filter for aerosoled paint droplets, and a looser one like a furnace filter for general air cleaning of all of the air in the room that this ting is going to cycle through. And accessible to change out. I'm a little skeptical of the furnace fan unless it's a drum fan or another type of impeller with the motor out of the airflow. Don't want the motor in the airflow as the paint will gunk it up.

Then duct from there to the world through a vent in the side of the room.

Or pay $ 300 for a Paasche booth that does all of the above at about 24" square, folds up when you need it.

As for lighting, I use a flourescent tube fixture because it's not hot and is cheap.

Johnny's is well designed. Hey, like to see a photo after it's been used a bit.

Don Stauffer

I also think that a furnace blower is overkill in terms of cfm needed for a spray booth.

I'm sure it probably is, but I have it, so why not use it.

So I should place the filter before the motor, almost as part (a side) of the booth?

Is there any other options I should consider implementing into the booth, as I hope to use it for a LONG time. as of now, I am planning on it being a large-ish (3' square for "table space") standing height booth, with blower motor/filter, as well as basic lighting.

I also think that a furnace blower is overkill in terms of cfm needed for a spray booth.

This is a spray booth that I made. It is composed of two basic parts; a removable plastic spray box, and a wood plenum which holds a furnace filter and a blower. I bought a plastic storage box from IKEA and cut a hole in the  long side. The side with the hole will become the bottom of the spray box. The wood plenum is a simple box with four sides and a bottom. The plenum is made from MDF boards. A furnace filter is located between the plastic spray box and the plenum. A course screen is located above the filter. The plastic spray box is removable from the plenum so that the filter can be replaced. I used a blower that I bought from Granger. The blower is designed with the electric motor located outside of the airflow. This prevents the electric motor from getting gummed-up by the paint vapors and so that any explosive vapors are not ignited by the electric fan. The blower is vented to the outside. You mentioned that you have a furnace blower. The size of the blower will require a deep plenum. Also, there is the safety issue since the blower motor is in the air stream. Also, I am not sure if the large volumn of air that is moved by the furnace blower will be a problem (sucking dust into the spray box). Good luck.

Ideally it's best to use a filter to capture the dust particles, before the blower motor, then positively discharge the fumes to the outside of the shop. Depending on the thinners and cleaners you may be spraying through the booth, be mindful of the explosive nature of some agents. Some motors are safe to spray things like enamel/lacquer thinner through, some definitely not.

I hope somebody with specific details and names of the safe motors will stop by, I can't recall them. Best of luck with your project.

Patrick 

The filter would absorb the paint mist so you aren't inhaling that into your lungs.  I don't know of a filter that absorbs the smell.   You would have to actually have the air sucked through the filter and expelled outside your room/home or whatever structure you are working in?

regards,

Jack