Your Paint Booth: Likes/Dislikes
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For those shop owners/employees, what kind of booth do you have? And what do you like/dislike about it? What maybe do you wish you had or could change about your current booth?
Also, how did you decide on your current booth?
– Quality
– Price
– Specific features
– Recommendation from a friend/someone in the business
– Relationship with distributor
– Company’s reputationIn other words, what ultimately made you decide on that specific booth and from that manufacturer?
I’d love your feedback! Thanks!
i have a home built booth from gyp rock and timber framed /sealed and painted ….loads of lights and a big ass fan in the back wall
LIKE …….
it works better than a 45k booth i worked in …less trash etc
dislike…….
heating the place due to the size !
all because i was on a tight budget
tommy
I wish I could build up a sweet paint booth myself, but If I actually wanted to get into the paint business I’d have to fork over for a certified booth….. poo
Mine is a 2″ PVC framed visquine booth, and it’s darker than the deepest darkest africa. I tore it down and built a larger one of 2×4’s, still too dark, and now I’m using an entire room of my new shop – it’s the ‘detailing’ bay, so it’s got plywood on the walls and hardcore paint. I’ve got vapor tight light fixtures going on the walls, and I’ll spray the walls and doors with liquid paint mask before any paint. If I do a complete car I’ll have to rethink fans…
I’ve used a few Garmat 3000s. Very expensive (well over 100k). The booth is well lit, excellent air flow, consistent pressure, heats quickly/well, not bad at reaching temp for bake cycle. I would gladly use one again. If it were my money, however, I think I would look for a more cost efficient alternative.
[quote=”Ben” post=16594]I’ve used a few Garmat 3000s. Very expensive (well over 100k). The booth is well lit, excellent air flow, consistent pressure, heats quickly/well, not bad at reaching temp for bake cycle. I would gladly use one again. If it were my money, however, I think I would look for a more cost efficient alternative.[/quote]
about 60k installed with fire suppression 😉[quote=”ding” post=16597][quote=”Ben” post=16594]I’ve used a few Garmat 3000s. Very expensive (well over 100k). The booth is well lit, excellent air flow, consistent pressure, heats quickly/well, not bad at reaching temp for bake cycle. I would gladly use one again. If it were my money, however, I think I would look for a more cost efficient alternative.[/quote]
about 60k installed with fire suppression ;)[/quote]I don’t think they are that cheap up here. We get gouged with everything :chair
I have a 7 year old Seetal Eurocabin downdraft (side extraction). It is natural gas fired and gets to bake temperature very quickly. I bought it used from the manufacturer for $16,500 installed, and that included brand new doors, reconditioned burner, 38 new daylight bulbs and a full set of filters. New, these booth run about $55K installed. Yes, I got a great deal.
Now, the downsides…
1. It is a concrete floor booth. I frikken [b]hate[/b] sweeping the booth out all the time, and you also have to mask really well because you can get overspray kicking up under the mask plastic and getting onto the car. Biatch to remove and takes profit from the job. Now I just spend more time masking to ensure it doesn’t happen.
2. Not all the lights work all the time (4 don’t work). There’s something wrong with the electrics on the lights.
3. As the booth was used and configured originally for another shop, I had to plug a lot of little holes. Plus, the original shop that had the booth were dirty bastards and sprayed primer and paint on the walls.
4. The booth leaks, and getting service from Seetal has been harder than finding the goose that laid the golden egg. If I had a dollar for all the times they’d promised to come out and fix things, I’d be rich. My booth still leaks rainwater.
5. I do get trash in jobs, but it has been settling down since I had the booth installed 2 years ago. With the concrete floor, I wet it down before I paint and that helps a lot.
6. It’s a pretty loud booth in the spray cycle.I hear that bad service is pretty endemic with the spray booth manufacturers. Seems they’re all happy to shmoose you until they get your money, and then you get ignored as they move onto the next sucker.
When I buy a new booth, I am getting a full grate floor, probably a water floor, and will have it setup for waterborne paint. I probably won’t get infrared drying and will stick with natural gas.
Hey paintwerks i use a seetal spraybooth as well not the newest booth but goes very well full downdraft with grates in the floor.
and a water tray system that goes around the edge of the booth and also has a fibreglass filter strip up the centre of the floor. Get jobs pritty clean out of it just bootlids and bonnets roofs that get a bit of shit..
Your right about service aftersale they are shockers they like car dealers as soon as they got your money they dont want to know you afterwards..Thanks for the feedback everyone! Anyone else work with a booth and are willing to share their thoughts?
I use a Blowtherm with Junair QUADS at work. I am happy with it.. Easy to maintain, seems to be a real workhorse. I wish it had a little more airflow but nothing bad. Bad news is this booth isn’t made anymore. Global bought Blowtherm and the booth is now made in Mexico and have heard the quality is just not there.
A few booths to look at are USI Italia, Junair, and if in North America look at Spraytech. All very nice.
I have some experience with Garmat. The ones I have used have been ok. Seemed to break somewhat often. They were all older models though. They pulled air very well and I liked using them.
[quote=”ryanbrown999″ post=16818]I use a Blowtherm with Junair QUADS at work. I am happy with it.. Easy to maintain, seems to be a real workhorse. I wish it had a little more airflow but nothing bad. Bad news is this booth isn’t made anymore. Global bought Blowtherm and the booth is now made in Mexico and have heard the quality is just not there.
A few booths to look at are USI Italia, Junair, and if in North America look at Spraytech. All very nice.
I have some experience with Garmat. The ones I have used have been ok. Seemed to break somewhat often. They were all older models though. They pulled air very well and I liked using them.[/quote]
I think you are right about the Garmats. The repair guys I have talked to don’t seem to have a lot of long term faith in them. I think the idea with them is for high volume shops that will get a good 5-10 years out of em (with regular, and surprise maintenance) then replace them. Too big of a money pit for the little guys.
On another note, with all the shops “going green” and paint manufacturers putting out low/short bake products, I wonder if baking will become a thing of the past to save energy consumption.
i cant complain about my garmat. had it for 5 years with no problems. of course i have just a little over 1100 hours on it so ita maybe 6 months to a year in a big production shop. the biggest thing with a booth is the quailty of the construction for the cabin and the components that they use to build it. you can use anyone’s electronics to control it. i can get any of the mechanical components should they fail right through Grainger. makes it easy to repair if i need to by myself.
A buddy of mine worked at a nissan dealer. they put in a futurecure booth. nice big booth with great lighting. a lot less expensive than mine, but the gaps in the panels looked a lot like that olds i repaired a few years back. you could through a dead cat through them. no amount of silicone was gonna fix that.At the place i use to work at we had a gen 4 spraybake. I used it from the time it was new. That was 8 years ago to present. Its was a good booth but it didnt flow that great. Bad thing is spraybake is no longer, that means no parts. My new job, we have an autobody toolmart booth. Its works as well as it was priced at. Flow is decent.
Great feedback everyone. Thanks! Any additional comments on quality, price, service of paint booth manufacturers? I.e.: What companies have the best/worst quality, price, service, overall reputation, etc?
I’m looking specifically at companies that sell in the US and Canada. All of your individual experience stories are helpful!
Kinda depends on where you are located to be honest. Most of the time the spray booth manufactuer doesn’t do any service or even involved. Usually companies that sell and install paint booths get a designated area to cover. That is who you willl be mainly dealing with.
The guy that installed and services ours is very helpful and does a good job. Whatever booth he is selling and installing is the one I would buy unless I didn’t want that particular brand. See who is local to you first and go from there.
For the money I think Spraytech is hard to beat.
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