okay, first off TONS of great info on here. i could read through all these threads for days and not get bored.


you guys motivated me to build my own paint booth. it will be for only painting motorcycle plastics so luckily it doesn't have to be as big as the booths for cars. i would like it to be a long lasting fixture, so no need to be able to break it down. right now i am looking at making it 8'x11' and probably about 8ft high.

i am running into a couple problems. i plan on using the 8mm plastic sheeting from lowe's for the walls.

should i use wood or pvc for the frame?

if i use pvc how do i go about attaching the plastic to the frame and making it air tight?

what should i use where the plastic sheeting overlaps and i need to seal two sheets together?

how are you guys making doors on your homemade booths? keep in mind i would like it to be airtight.

thanks a ton guys.

Luke

Hey Luke- saw no one answered you yet so I'll see if I can help- I have my own booth now, but when I first set up a small plastic sheet one I used wood 'stringers' for framing and stapled in to the top- sealed all the sheets with plastic sealing tape on one of those roller dispensers- made it simple to just stick and rip! For the 'door' I just overlapped two sheets, then put a brick on the bottom of the first sheet- that kept it in place as I slid between them to get out. I taped a squirrel cage fan on one end at a cutout hole and a couple filters on the other end and just ran the airhose under the sheet. Worked okay as long as you didn't go in and out a lot and always had a GOOD supply of air coming in. Be careful, as you want to follow all safety precautions- respirator, good airflow, light, etc... Good luck and hope I helped!!

Must have missed this post.

Here's a pic of the temporary booth I built when I painted my '41. Used a wood frame and plastic sheeting. The sheeting was stapled to the ceiling and to the frame and I used duct tape to seal the plastic sheets together. Also duct taped the plastic to the floor.



I used three box fans blowing air in through furnace filters and one box fan sucking air out through a filter. This kept the booth pressurized and the dust down. Worked pretty well if I do say so myself. The doors were made using a wood frame and were covered in plastic sheeting.

Make sure you have a good fresh air supply for breathing too. You don't want to breath the iso's in modern paints because they can kill you.

Good luck.

Centerline

thanx guys!

i'll be sure to post some pics once i get it all setup.

I just built a similar booth to Centerlines. I used 2x4's for the frame. It's 20' x 12'. I used heavy weight plastic with all the lights outside the booth. So far I've painted one car in it and it worked pretty well. I'll definately add more lights for the next car (sometime this week); I don't think you can have too many lights. The plastic got a bit covered with overspray, but nothing too bad. I used two box fans, they seemed to work pretty well. The back door is a single piece of plastic with a 12' piece of wood at the bottom. When I was spraying I had the door rolled up about two feet off the ground. The exhaust was through this 2 feet. Seemed to work pretty well.

If your going to use it a lot I would lay it out on paper a few times to get it right. Maybe put a door on the side wall in a permanent frame and a squirrel cage blower in the wall. That way all you would need to do is set up the walls. The booth I now is in a building that is heated and cooled. My door has a full length filter, I buy a roll of AC filter stuff, and the squirrel cage pulls the heated or cooled air from the building into the room, that way in the winter I have no source of combustion in the booth but I get the room nice and warm and in the summer the humidity is reduced because I pull the conditioned air.
If I were going to do it in the garage I would do the same thing, set a door that will always be in place, as well as the air lines, dryer and exhaust system in place also mount a bunch of lights, I have 6 8' long 2 bulb florescent lights and it is not enough or it is the wrong king of light? Last paint what ever walls that will stay in place and the roof and even the floor if possible in a very light color. Then all you would need to do was hang the plastic. You would have a good entry door and ventilation system in place.

I learned to paint in the Air force (I'm still in but for only a couple of more months) I've never spayed a car yet but I've spent all kinds of time slinging paint on fighter jets. I'm planning on setting up my on spay booth someday soon. This thread got my attention and my question is are just a couple of box fans enough air flow? I'm just use to aircraft hangar sized booths I guess...

I had made plans for one, but ended up being able to use my neighbors booth at his bodyshop...anyways...a couple of observations:

The Home Store plastic sheeting may tend to become 'brittle' after exposure to the solvent vapors and may need to be replaced every so often (not a big deal as it's cheap)

To seal the sheeting to the PVC tubing use the bonding glue that is used when assembling a sprinkler system (usually blue in color).

To make a doorway that seals up well, glue strips of refrigerator magnets to the ends of each sheet (sealing partition), making sure that you have the mangnetic pole the right way around.

Make sure that there are no ignition sources in your garage, like a water heater, clothes dryer (nat. gas), or furnace etc....the vapors can and will ignite....seen it happen!!!

Same goes for the exhaust fan...get an explosion proof fan (Class I, Div. I), as the vapors could also ignite from the arcing of the fan (not common, but the potential is there).

If you have neighbors close by, have the exhaust fan blowing onto a wet towel or blanket (keeps vapors and overspray down a bit)


Tim

i'm getting ready to paint the vette this week, a couple of things i need to note, maybe ask a few.
i mistakingly used plastic to cover the underside of my doors while i primed the surface. when dry the primer flaked off and made a mess,will this happen in a spray booth made of plastic?? or will not spraying the booth walls be enough.
as far as a door goes , a frame of wood with plastic over, fold some plastic and staple it on as weather stripping.
i've got 3m filterte furnace filters and regular ones as a backer, will this do?
also i'm using the fan off a hot air oil furnace.they work well and there real cheap used.
in a more used application(using mine once)would it be better if it was made of cheap nylon cloth or the like??
the seams will be duct taped as will the spots on the wall where i will shoot the staples in to hold the plastic..i'm plasticing the floor too and seaming it all tight to the filters and fan, like in a big pop bottle. will this work or will i still have dust in the finish??all opinions welcome.mike

For a temporary one, consider using the framework for those cheap "carports". You know, pipe framework & silver tarp roof... Instead of the tarp, cover it with visquine & use a ton of those cheap plastic clamps. If you do it outside, it makes a nice oven for the fresh paint to bake in. It gets damn hot inside one of these in the sun.

49 T&C

Another thing I found, I think it's best to use the plastic only once. The overspray won't flake off right away; but it might a few days later. I painted two cars within two weeks, and there was some contamination in the second car from old paint coming off the used plastic. I have one more car to paint, and I'll replace the plastic before. Plastic is really cheap, so it's worth replacing for each job, in my opinion.
dh

what about those canopies that you can buy from wal-mart. i found one that is 10" x 20" for around 80 bucks...it comes with the frame and the roof. the same company also sells the 3 walls and one zippered door, for about 60 bucks more. will the paint damage the material in these pieces? i was thinking of just buying the frame/roof and using regular visquene for the sides. would this work well enough for a paint booth? it will be set up in my backyard, and i will only be painting small pieces...starting with my dashboard from my truck.

I also paint only motorcycles. I built my paint booth out a metal yard shed I bought at sears on sale. It is an 8x10, plenty big enough for m/c tanks, side covers, fenders or a frame. I built the floor out of pressure treated 2x6's for floor joists and used OSB for the floor. I sealed every joint with a latex caulking ( don't use silocone caulkig as you will get plenty of fish eyes in the paint as it slowly vapors off as it cures ) when the building was put together I also sealed it where it was screwed to the floor. I put 2 high velocity fans at one on top of each other to exhaust and made frames to hold 8 20x20 a/c filters in both ends. The none fan end pulls the air thru from the out side and the other 8 filters catch the over spray just in front of the ehaust fans. I will try and post a couple of pics in a day or two. Kind of hard to explain the filter and fan system. I also made the sliding door seals out of garage door seals that go on the bottom of roll ups to keep water out of your garage. I researched paint booths and the experts say you do not want a negative pressure in a paint booth but only a very slight positive pressure. This setup has worked real well for me to have paint jobs come out clean with out dust or dirt specks.

Here's a page detailing my building of a temporary sandblast booth in my shop, using basically the same techniques and materials as those above. ...plastic sheeting on wood 2x2 framework.

http://www.oldsmobility.com/F100/my67-p12.htm

you need good ventilation- preferably downdraft, but that's exspensive compared to more economincal "fan in the wall" deals. Don't forget filters to have clean air coming in and to remove paint droplets going out.