— Cleaning out your spray booth —
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[i]How do you guys clean your spray booths out in between each paint job…what works for yall? [/i]
I just sweep and mop with clean water.
i sweep it to get the bulk then turn the fan on and blow the floor down. i would blow the walls as well but they have a sticky booth coating on them so its unnecessary.
In between each job? You must be joking 😛 I’m painting anything up 18-20 jobs a day, so I barely get chance to open and close the doors, never mind clean up, lol.
I do ‘work tidy’ though – absolutely no prep work done in the booth, and all cars are clean, blown off, and pretty much masked up before entering, so there’s very little dust brought in. The walls are lined with static masking sheet that clings on to dust pretty well, and every once in a while it’ll get a sweep, mop, and vacuum out.
Whenever I change the filters (about every 6 weeks), the floor gets a thorough mop with thinners to remove the overspray (tiled floor, easily cleaned), and the sheeting on the walls gets changed.
It doesn’t guarantee me dirt free jobs, but with the speed we are working at it gives a pretty good compromise.
Given I work in my garage, I’m looking for suggestions/tips. What would you guys recommend?
i just blow it on the car while the clear is wet so i can fine tune my buffing technique 😛 😛
My helpers buff my jobs so I don’t do anything! :rofl
Seriously, we booth coat the walls every month and our floor is indoor/outdoor carpet so it gets vacummed in the motning.
[b]ryanbrown999 wrote:[/b]
[quote]My helpers buff my jobs so I don’t do anything! :rofl [/quote]You can’t beat it! I’ve got a guy that just does buffing all day long, a job that would do my head in very quickly.
I only help him out when I feel guilty after being a bit over enthusiastic with the clear, as he hasn’t got a clue how to remove runs! :blink:
thats the first time i have ever heard someone having carpeting in a booth. that seems like it would trap alot of dirt. i line my floors with 100lb white booth paper and the walls i spray with evercoat’s tacky coat booth coating. the 2 together really reduces dust nibs and every time the booth is cleaned i have perfectly bright white floors and walls.
[b]jim c wrote:[/b]
[quote]thats the first time i have ever heard someone having carpeting in a booth. that seems like it would trap alot of dirt. i line my floors with 100lb white booth paper and the walls i spray with evercoat’s tacky coat booth coating. the 2 together really reduces dust nibs and every time the booth is cleaned i have perfectly bright white floors and walls.[/quote]It works rather well. It does trap dirt but it doesn’t come out of it till you vacuum it. As long as you run the vacuum every morning it stays clean. Also when I pressure wash the walls to remove booth coating I will do the carpet. It is indoor/outdoor so you can wet it and it doesn’t hurt it. It won’t mold either. Plus it is a little easier on your feet and when you have to get down to paint the lower part of a car it is easier on your knees.
The paper your talking about seems like a good idea. Where do you get it from?
i air blow the walls, ceiling, fan and doors, then sweep it and mist water on the floor between every job. as far as filters go i change them about every 10 overalls. scrape the fan and spray the booth an enamel white yearly.
[b]Andy T wrote:[/b]
[quote]In between each job? You must be joking 😛 I’m painting anything up 18-20 jobs a day, so I barely get chance to open and close the doors, never mind clean up, lol.What kind of a shop do you work at? And how many hours a day do you work? Thats a lot of cars!
I was thinking the same thing. It takes me a while to do one car by the time I mask and base then clear.
We must be doing something wrong? :blink:
[b]Underpaid Painter wrote:[/b]
[quote]What kind of a shop do you work at? And how many hours a day do you work? Thats a lot of cars![/quote]
They’d work me 24hrs a day of they could!, but I normally stick to 8 or 9.I run the paintshop for a large car retailer, and most of what we do is classed as refurb work. They’ll buy in ex-fleet and ex-rental cars by the hundred, and we tidy up any dings, dents and scuffs on them, averaging around 2 panels per car. I have 2 or 3 guys doing all the prep work, depending how busy we are, and by the time the cars are lined up outside the booth they are fully prepped, primed, cleaned, and virtually masked. All I have to do is drive them in, throw some plastic masking sheet over them, and (almost literally) throw on the paint. I have a separate oven at the side to bake them off, so as soon as one’s painted it gets rolled out of the way on a track system, and the next one comes in to get painted while that’s baking.
Bake time for larger jobs like full sides or front ends is 30 minutes, but for single panels or bumpers (we get lots of those!) I’ll use a faster hardener to get that down to 15-20, and I paint fast enough so that there’s always one painted and waiting to go in the oven as soon as it’s empty. It’s very fast and furious work, but since I get paid a bonus for every car my team turns out, speed is essential.
I couldn’t do it without the right products though. A fast drying water base is crucial, as is a clear that can handle single coat application where appropriate (bumpers, low down panels) or has minimal minimal flash times (3 minutes) if I’m two coating for roofs, bonnets (hoods) etc.
Paint for the next job is mixed whilst the base on the current one is drying, and clear is mixed up while the base drop coat is drying so I never have to stop, and I try and organise things (yes, I’m controlling the shop and my team at the same time as all this!!) so that we have a few cars of the same colour in at the same time, so we can sometimes remove parts and paint 2 or 3 jobs together.
As I say, I’m working at breakneck speed all the time, and it gets pretty stressful, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, and going back to a regular collision type shop would probably bore me now B)
i get my booth paper from here.
https://www.andreaefilter.com/
this is another company as well but more expensive.
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