Building Paint Booth for New Shop
- This topic has 17 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 8 months ago by .
- Posts
Soon I’ll be moving to a new shop and I would like to build a 2 car paint booth. I don’t know much about making a paint booth and what is the best way to have the air flowing so maybe someone who knows more about this can share some of their wisdom.
I have rented a lot of different spray booths and have never had a clean paint job, often the car ends up looking very similar to the paint jobs that I do in the mechanic shop that I’m renting now. I have come to the conclusion that most people really don’t know shit about building a cheap paint booth, which makes me thing that I have to rethink the general idea a little bit.I’ll try to explain what my paint booth looks like in my mind and please give me some ideas on how I can improve upon the schematic;
First of all, instead of walls on this 2 car paint booth, I want thick plastic transparent sheeting that I can pull back to let cars in and out. There will be a curb where the sheeting meets the ground that will keep water inside the booth when hosed down. A second piece of plastic will hang down 2 feet around the paint booth so that it is more difficult for dust to get inside the booth. A speed bump will split the paint booth in half and have a movable piece of clear plastic so that 2 small cars can be painted at the same time.
The floor will have small led lights angled up at the car and the ceiling will have led lights angled down at the car as well as lights going down the middle.
Each half of the paint booth will have 2 blower fans, one closer to the middle and one lower sitting right above the hood.Please let me know if there are changes I could make to have a higher quality product!
If your serious about painting cars just lease a booth from autobodytoolmart there like 60 bucks a month right now or go to your local paint supplier I know in my area industrial finishess will hook up a booth and a whole paint system for free don’t get caught spraying without a booth not worth the fines when you get caught
79 olds is right,You can’t make a homemade booth on the cheap that will actually work.$ for $ you could buy a used crossflow for $1500 -$3500 and you are good to go.If you add up what a good tubeaxil fan and all the lights you would already be past that figure.
Heh, okay, not the kind of replies I was expecting. Please can you refrain from tell me to go buy a used spray booth or lease one, for reasons I don’t feel the need to get into.
Let’s help me with designing this new kind of spray booth! Thank you.If I was building a temp booth I would use plywood one end would have inlet filters with furnance fans outside the booth blowing towards the filters then other end of booth would have barn. Style doors with filters attached at the bottom of them to have fumes filter before they go out to my neighbors cut holes on the sides and roof attach plexi glass over them etc then place my lighting over the plexi this is so fumes don’t get a chance to get into wiring don’t want a fire that’s a basic idea there but still after a few jobs you should be able to afford a booth
If you want to build a temp booth that i would go like 79olds says , i see many people that have one like that and they seem to work good , as long as you have good filters , sufficient airflow and all the seems/doors are air tight it will work , you can even plumb some form of heating in there so you can at least spray at a decent temperature.
like i said , lots of proffesionals use booths like this ……….[quote=”pierceg” post=31641]Heh, okay, not the kind of replies I was expecting. Please can you refrain from tell me to go buy a used spray booth or lease one, for reasons I don’t feel the need to get into.
Let’s help me with designing this new kind of spray booth! Thank you.[/quote]your zoning officer and fire marshal will give you plenty of reason.
Just because it is a high dollar or nice paint booth, doesn’t always mean you are going to get clean jobs. Booth prep, car prep, and how clean YOU are all factors in a nice clean job. I still know guys that paint out in the middle of the floor that get just as clean of a job that I get in my downdraft. Thing is though I will never have any problems from any regulations and can paint at anytime of the day or anytime of the week.
If you are planning on making money at painting cars, invest in a good paint booth. Doesn’t have to be new…can be like what jay said or one from abtm. But hey…if you want to take a chance, have at it. But honestly you won’t get much help here on building a homemade booth.
[quote=”jeremyb” post=31645]Just because it is a high dollar or nice paint booth, doesn’t always mean you are going to get clean jobs. Booth prep, car prep, and how clean YOU are all factors in a nice clean job. I still know guys that paint out in the middle of the floor that get just as clean of a job that I get in my downdraft. Thing is though I will never have any problems from any regulations and can paint anytime of the day at anytime of the week.
If you are planning on making money at painting cars, invest in a good paint booth. Doesn’t have to be new…can be like what jay said or one from abtm. But hey…if you want to take a chance, have at it. But honestly you won’t get much help here on building a homemade booth.[/quote]
[quote=”pierceg” post=31641]Heh, okay, not the kind of replies I was expecting. Please can you refrain from tell me to go buy a used spray booth or lease one, for reasons I don’t feel the need to get into.
Let’s help me with designing this new kind of spray booth! Thank you.[/quote]
All I was trying to do was let you know realisticly by the time you buy all your materials to make a homemade booth you could have easily bought a used cross flow.A proper tubeaxil fan alone is in the neighborhood of $800-$1000 plus the lights ducting etc.Good luck with your booth and there are plenty of other sites that can show you how to build a homemade booth.What you spelled out in the original post will work for you. Once it is up and running you can see how it performs and make any changes from there. unless you build a dedicated room there is not much else you can do. Hopefully you will be able to do something a little more permanent and professional in the future
I have made a couple of booths, and only had mediocre results at best. The bottom line is you need WAY more light that you might think, and WAY more airflow than you would probably expect. You’re talking about serious money in parts to make a good booth.
Pierceg, to some extent I understand where you’re coming from. Sometimes it just isn’t possible to have a commercially made booth installed. I had that problem. My workshop is two retail shops which are long and narrow with a row of steel columns in the walls supporting the floor above. A commercial booth was impossible so I had to come up with something that was worked, was safe and met the minimum standards we have (very similar to yours). This is what I came up with:
[URL=http://s589.photobucket.com/user/cprscc/media/Painting/Booth002_zps39c5be9e.jpg.html][IMG]http://i589.photobucket.com/albums/ss334/cprscc/Painting/Booth002_zps39c5be9e.jpg[/IMG][/URL]It’s not perfect but with a little attention to keeping it clean I can get nice clean work that, most of time doesn’t need more than the occasional dust nib removed, no worse than I’ve experienced in commercial booths. The important thing though, is that it is about as safe as a commercial booth. The panels are sandwich, like refrigeration panel, but with a fire resistant core, the brick wall is naturally fire rated and the doors are steel frame, sheeted with fibro which is also fire rated. It’s easy enough to hose out and, over time I’ve addressed most of the dust ingress points so that now the air comes in through filtered panels in the doors, as it should. My next project is to add some heating which will make it much easier in the winter (minimums here are down to around -8 deg C) when painting does become somewhat challenging.
All the building materials came to less than $1500 (panels were second hand from a building site) with the major expense being the fan, motor and plenum chamber with ducting which goes through the tenancy above and exits above the roof, in accordance with the regulations. End draught is not ideal but it works just fine as long as I keep the exhaust filter changed regularly every week (costs about $5.00, so no biggie). The plenum chamber and fan is a professionally made item, designed for the booth size, so works exceptionally well.
My point is that this probably didn’t cost much more than what you are considering and certainly much less than a commercial booth, which, here, start at around $35,000 and range up to $70,000. The advantage, though, is that it is as well sealed as I can make it, which I think might be the downfall of the design that you are considering. The other concerns I would have with the plastic sheeting you’re looking at are susceptibility to static charge and whether they would attract and hold dust.
Not bagging your idea, just saying that there are other ways of achieving the result.
That really does not seem like enough light to me. Not even close. That looks like the amount of light I had, and put it this way: I didn’t have a sun gun…… Had to pull it right back in.
Yes, even though I put extra lights in, it is only just adequate. The daylight coming through the window at the end does make the camera make it look darker than it actually is, though. Really need lights down low but brick wall makes that difficult, which is why the floor has just been repainted and the walls are about to get a lick, too.
OP needs to consider this in his plan, too. Plastic walls won’t allow light fitment and they won’t reflect enough.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.