Buying a spray booth this week. Need advice.

Build your own.

Somebody posted plans, but I can't find them now! It wouldn't take much. A cheap kitchen hood for a top, a good furnace filter, an inexpensive flourescent light kit and some plywood.

Says the guy who hasn't built a spray booth. Yet!

I bought the 24" one from Pace about 2yrs ago and very happy with it. Good quality at a decent price check them out.
http://www.pacepaintbooths.com/pace/

check this out, gonna do this in the next few days...
: http://www.interlog.com/~ask/scale/tips/booth.htm
good luck... :)

I built this one.


It was inexpensive. The most expensive part was the shadepole blower, about $60, @ 265 CFM. You can get an even stronger one for less than $100. I have about $35 in materials for the box itself, including the light on top. Here is the site I got the design from.

http://www.briansmodelcars.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?TutorialID=23&CurPage=1

where did you get your blower? grainger (in the tutorial) is a wee bit expensive.

I bought the blower from Grainger, or a Grainger distributor at least. I'm not sure if it's expensive or not. I couldn't find anyone else that sold them and compared to the price of a spraybooth already put together, it still seemed pretty cheap. Mine was listed on the site at $65 and I got it for $60. Not that it's a big difference. The bottom line blower that he recommends on his site is like $95 I think. Still would be cheaper than $300 you would spend on a retail spraybooth. I will say that mine works superbly I think. Though, my ventalation hose is not that long and doesn't have a lot of twists and turns.

I also bought a Pace last year. It is really big and was a tad over $300.00. For that price you get built in lights. variable speed fan control, built in outlets and a removable, extendable work tray that hangs on the front of the booth. Also uses standard furnace filters. I did look around and thought this was the best value for the money. It has proved to be my best modeling investment. Check out their web site, they have several different models/sizes. I bought the largest one which is the Pace or Peace Maker. Plenty of room for 1/32.

I bought Paasche's Hobby Spray Booth off of Ebay about 2 years ago. There is still someone selling one on Ebay here:
http://search.ebay.com/paasche-booth_W0QQfkrZ1QQfromZR8

It's an excellent spray booth and it colapses down for storage. The only thing missing is a light, but that is easy to install; took me about 10 minutes.

Later,
Jesse

Do a search on ebay for 265 cfm exhaust fans. I got one new on ebay for $69. I'm finishing up a home built spray booth with this fan mounted to a large plastic storage container. So far seems to be working very well. I'll post pictures when i get a chance. With motor and other parts total cost about $100.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/californiahydro/acshpoblexfa.html

Jadormdrache, when you change the CFM to 265 and add the $13 extra, it comes to the same $60 I paid.

Word of caution on these fans: Make sure the one you buy is 'brushless'. If it isn't 'brushless' and you are spraying enamels or lacquers, you could start a fire.

Jesse

i got an artograph. it is the huge one and it works extremely well. I think it was around 300 dollars.

Tanky, you're the man. For a fifteen year old, you've got it going on! Only wish that there were more youngsters like you in our hobby. Just for a comparison, when most of us older guys were fifteeen, we thought we were the man if we had a Badger 250 and a can of propellant. You've got some nice equipment, keep up the good work.

Just one point: If you are going to build a booth, a 256 cfm fan is NOT going to work in all cases. The cfm of the fan is predicated on the booth size. If, for example, your booth face size is 2' X 2' and the minimum recommended airflow is 80 fpm, then the fan is going to have to be at least 320 cfm (2 X 2 x 80). Depending on duct size and length, an increase in the fan cfm by about 15% may be required in order to maintain duct transport velocities.

BTW, the Artographs are great booths since they operate on a downdraft exhaust system.

Gip Winecoff

Ok, on the cheap...(you guys are gonna laugh)

I broke apart an air-hockey table that my neighbor was tossing out...and took the fan unit from it. I built a plywood box from a sheet of plywood, installed the fan (yes, it was brushless), and attached dryer vent hose to a plywood insert fit into my basement window. I then lined the walls and roof of the booth with furnace filters to pick up any particulates that didn't make it into the vacuum created by the fan.

It worked very well for about 5 years, then when I moved from NJ to WI, I took the fan unit with me and left everything else in place in the old house. Total cost...about $25 between the plywood, furnace filters and dryer vent hose. I also picked up a cheap turntable "Lazy Susan" from a kitchen store for $12...

Something to think about if you're handy with a screw gun and a table saw.

Jeff

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jeff Herne Ok, on the cheap...(you guys are gonna laugh) I broke apart an air-hockey table that my neighbor was tossing out...and took the fan unit from it. I built a plywood box from a sheet of plywood, installed the fan (yes, it was brushless), and attached dryer vent hose to a plywood insert fit into my basement window. I then lined the walls and roof of the booth with furnace filters to pick up any particulates that didn't make it into the vacuum created by the fan. It worked very well for about 5 years, then when I moved from NJ to WI, I took the fan unit with me and left everything else in place in the old house. Total cost...about $25 between the plywood, furnace filters and dryer vent hose. I also picked up a cheap turntable "Lazy Susan" from a kitchen store for $12... Something to think about if you're handy with a screw gun and a table saw. Jeff

Laugh? At what? Your ability to scrounge, therefore saving your loot for kits?

Once I figure out how to take over my wife's craft area, I'm building my own. I already have the kitchen hood from when we redecorated the kitchen. I get plywood skid tops from work for free, furnace filters are dirt cheap and I even have the dryer hose left over (I had to buy a 10' length for a 2' install). I figure my booth will set me back less then $5! Well, that and my wife's wrath when she finds out my evil plan!

Dang Jeff, I'd have thought that you could get a good deal so you could "write a review" or something. hehe. I built my own, but i seriously have my eye on the large pace model... looks very good to me!