moving to garage forum.

 

my dad has an old barn on his property that we are thinking making into a paint booth, what are the materials that i need and how do i build a paint booth

That depends on what you are looking for. Homemade paintbooths are made of most anything. As long as it gives an appearance of being closed off from everything else.

I remember in my insurance adjusting days when I went to a body shop that was actually in a barn. They had dirt floors in the "body work" area, and gravel in the "paint room". Their "paint room" consisted of just a separate room, complete with a "barn door" that you could see thru the slats, and an exhaust fan. Of course they had plenty of lights.

I know of another guy that made wooden swinging doors for his garage, and put in places for filters. The filter areas had doors on them, so he could close them off, and they looked normal. He had a large exhaust fan in the rear of the garage. The inside was finished off, I believe with drywall, and painted white.

Basically what you need is something for the walls and ceiling to seal it off from everything else, to prevent overspray and reduce dust in the paint. You need a ventilation system of some sort to remove the fumes and overspray and replace it with fresh air, preferrably filtered both ways. It is best if you can bring in the air from high, and out from low. You will need plenty of lights. If you think you have more than enough light, double that 4 times. If you don't need sunglasses, it isn't bright enough! There are alot of things that you can do in the dark, or with shadows. Painting isn't one of them! You will also need to be able to control the temperature in some way. Professional paint booths have heaters that will "bake" the finish. You really don't need that, but do need to be able to keep it warm enough for the surface and paint to be comfortable.

For the fans, they do make explosion proof ones. I uderstand that they are kind of pricey. What I have used for exhaust fans, and I am not an expert on fans, so do so at your own risk, is use old furnace fans. There are ones that have belt drive blowers. Since the fan draws air in the sides, you can make a shield that closes off the side with the belt and motor. I use the other side for the air intake, making an adaptor to connect to the vent. I use air return filter vents that accept filters to catch the overspray. I like to use the finer filters, for catching the alergy dusts, as they let the least thru them. I also have found that using the re-useable filters as a pre-filter helps. I actually tried spraying the pre-filters with "Pam"(the stuff from the kitchen for spraying pans with) to kep the paint from sticking to them. That way you can re-use them. That worked fine for me, as the air was not being drawn back into the booth. The intake filters are just the run of the mill air filters.

Just some suggestions.

Aaron

 

http://www.2manitowoc.com/paintroom.html

 

my dad has an old barn on his property that we are thinking making into a paint booth, what are the materials that i need and how do i build a paint booth

Clean and dry..Well ventilated I would think using an old forced air furnace blowing in to the booth that is filtered and having some filters on the exhaust vents would be fine..

Main thing is keeping the critters and dirt from getting the fresh paint..Warm in the winter now that is another story..??

Lighting..there are some special bulbs and tubes that give better color rendition..cost more that regular bulbs tho..

Do a google search on "paint booth" and there are lot of folks that make those and the price is not all that bad if comparing labor and materials to build your own..

OMT

 

how to biuld a paintbooth

thanks a lot for the information

 

flat white and plenty of lights. i use metal studs and 1/2 sheetrock. i'm on the farm so theres no restrictions. my doors ar solid filters down to 2 ft from the floor. exhaust is outside.
the side lights are true light bulbs. the one above the bench has reg bulbs.