Dag needs your help
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[b]MoCoke wrote:[/b]
[quote][b]Han wrote:[/b]
[quote]Dag, post some pics of the work. Would be cool to see.[/quote]Please do! i need to do this too
Judging by the link on down draft booth design, the one with a completely grated floor seems like it will produce the best finishes and help utilize the greatest square footage of the room? am i wrong? why do some down drafts have such narrow floor exhausts then?[/quote]
Almost always a single row floor filter will give you greater CFM. Your intake and exhaust fans are the same size. The single row creates more flow around the car as you have to exhaust the same amount of air you bring in the keep the pressure in the cabin even. You may have 10-30 cfm at the ceiling and by the time it gets around the car it’s 50-100 cfm pulling across the panels. The single row also helps from getting dead spots on cars. The downside is that your sprayzone is smaller and you can get dead spots on the sides. This is just kinda one of those things booth companies do to keep cost and electrical costs down and while still giving good airflow. It is also easier on the feet not walking on grates all day.
A full floor can pull as good, as long as the booth is designed well. There will typically be less CFM pulled across the car so they have to use a bigger fan or pulley. I would personally rather have the full floor grated with a bigger fan on the booth.
sounds like it’ll cost just about the same to build a custom ‘homemade’ booth as it does for a manufactured economy model.
what i like about the idea is most standard booths are 9 feet high which is sometimes too small for my line of work. i typically require 10 feet which is what i have now and it gets pretty tight sometimes. so a bit higher is better, but not being standard will mean ill end up paying a lot more
how much do true, pitted downdraft manufactured models typically cost with or without heat? any good sources or brands too shop around for?
My current booth is made of cinder block, and a large steel roll up entry door. no heat and poor air flow. (cross flow design) the exhaust is circulated to a water trap to collect overspray. all home made but not very efficient any more (20 years old)
I got a quote on a garmat frontier booth with a 1 millon BTU heater, solid back, double skin installed for $65,645.00
[b]Underpaid Painter wrote:[/b]
[quote]I got a quote on a garmat frontier booth with a 1 millon BTU heater, solid back, double skin installed for $65,645.00[/quote]for a steel box with a couple of fans? god damn!
[b]MoCoke wrote:[/b]
[quote][b]Underpaid Painter wrote:[/b]
[quote]I got a quote on a garmat frontier booth with a 1 millon BTU heater, solid back, double skin installed for $65,645.00[/quote]for a steel box with a couple of fans? god damn![/quote]
Most professional booths do indeed cost that much.
Most the shop guys I’ve talked to with what they consider “Top of the line booths” paid between 50-70 thousand for them.
Most of them basically have a mortgage for 5-10-15 years on them to.But most also have quite a bit of technology built into them in comparison to a basic economy booth.
High amount of adjust-ability. Dual insulated walls, Fire suppression systems, Flow metered/dampened floors, precise bake cycles, Max filter efficiency, max power efficiency.
They are precisely tested and setup for even spray flow patterns, Through flow metering dampening.
Most professional booths guarantee a 10 micron spray zone. Meaning, if you add no contaminates to the area (IE: Contaminants coming off the car, you, or other items placed in the booth) you are guaranteed a constant 10 micron work area surrounding the car.The Economy units are just as you said, a metal box with some fans and lights… They are designed to meet spray requirements and nothing more.
The crap they go through for the big name booths, is in no doubt excessive. You call one of those companies and they can tell you some of the most in depth bullshit you’ve ever heard.
Does that make them worth 70 grand though?
Well I guess that is up to the buyer.
If used correctly will a big name booth provide a cleaner finish in comparison to a economy booth?
With all the in depth testing they go through? I have no doubt in my mind they will.But the only place I can see anyone giving a shit about a couple extra nibs to cut and buff, is in an extremely high production shop.
Sadly they don’t exactly hold their value though, a 10 year old “Top of the line booth” is worth about a 1/4 of what it cost new. Especially with all these shops going under.
I would say if you’re in the market for a booth, do your research, and check locally for used booths.All an economy booth is going to do is get you by.
But at the same time, Economy booths hold their value well. So there is no reason an upgrade later is out of the option.It is the difference between owning a Geo Metro and a Bugatti Veyron.
in basic concept they both do basically the same thing.But more in depth, in the end the Bugatti is designed to run cleaner, faster, Safer and more efficiently.
But in the end are all the bells and whistles really worth the cost?
And just like with with car brands and models, there are plenty of decent “middle of the line” booths, and decent prices out there to be had. Just do your research before you put your money into that kind of investment.
I have two booths, one is a side downdraft the other is a full downdraft. I installed the downdraft when I first built the place 10 years ago. Its a spraybake, was around 80k after install. As we grew the need for a second booth came up, I didnt want to borrow money so we decided on a middle of the road booth;a side downdraft. Was around 30k installed with everything, fire suppression, heat, etc. Both booths will put out the same quality work, but the downdraft does move a bit more air and seems to work better with waterborne paints. The side downdraft will get the job done but has some dead spots for air flow. But if I had to do it over again I would put in two side downdrafts and be done with it.. Cheaper, hold their value better, faster to install, and easier to maintain. Plus I could of gotten two booths for the less than the price of the new spraybake. Plus if I ever pull the spraybake out I will have a big hole in the floor to deal with.
At the shop I work at we have an 8 yr old spraybake. It has all the bells and whistles a booth can have. It takes a lap top computer to work on it. It is a nice booth dont get me wrong, but I get better jobs out of our down draft prep stations at times.
One of the major problems with our 70 plus thousand dollar booth is that spraybake is out of business. 👿
Check out the booths that autobody tool mart has, they dont seem too bad for a cheeper booth.
Dudes, forget the booths, learn to cut and buff. :birth1
Im just finishing up a project right now hopefully out of my hair by the weekend, but anyway after that Im goin to start on my homemade booth, A question I have is if my height is only 8 1/2-9ft could this cause me any problems besides the obvious that I wont be getting no lifted trucks in there :lol1 Its just going to be a cross draft and possibly a row of filters in the ceiling and I was thinking of 2 ducts in each corner of the exhaust wall exhausted by 1 tubeaxial fan. Dimensions are 16w x 22L x 8 1/2H
Maybe as an alternate for Dag, instead of digging a hole in the ground for a pit, why not make it a drive up booth. Then it is still a full downdraft and possibly a little easier to build.
I imagine most or all of the vehicles going into it are drivable, so having a little ramp heading into it shouldn’t be an issue.
[b]Han wrote:[/b]
[quote]Dudes, forget the booths, learn to cut and buff. :birth1[/quote]Booo! Buffing sucks :rofl
[b]ryanbrown999 wrote:[/b]
[quote][b]Han wrote:[/b]
[quote]Dudes, forget the booths, learn to cut and buff. :birth1[/quote]Booo! Buffing sucks :rofl[/quote]
+1 😉
Well I found a good deal(to me 😉 ) picked up a Devilbiss cross draft 14w x 26L x 9h, high cfm, all wiring, tempered glass, all lighting, 3 stage air dryer, new filters, and brand new fresh air supply compressor with 2 new masks for $2000 cdn. [img]http://www.refinishnetwork.com/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/206.JPG[/img]
Garmat booths are definitely worth the price. In response to the comment below – there is no dead air in a Garmat downdraft. They use a dual entry fan which keeps your airflow consistent. Homemade booth and a booth from Automart is not apples to apples with a Garmat Booth. We replaced our blotherm with a 3000 Series about 8 years ago and for our new shop we added a pitless model – Chinook the mechanical is integrated. Maintenance costs vary greatly after installation- Garmat filters are easy to change and the grates are super light weight so changing the exhaust filters are a breeze. Even the lights are an easy switch. In a nutshell the upfront money was paid back in reduced operational costs not too mention the energy savings with the recycle on bake functions. Also better finish = less buffing – need I say more. One more valuable addition – accelecure to both booths – our cars are in an out in almost no time.
We had considered keeping the blotherm but maintenance was going through roof. Then we looked at used booths – getting them in compliance added to more to our installation then we were saving in cost. Homemade booth – great if you don’t care about that production is slow, dirt and dust, VOC issues, being in compliance and more buffing.
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