if i was gonna paint my truck in our shop what would you recommend to keep contaminants down to a minimum since i dont have access to a paint booth. plus when i paint it do i need to sand it before i lay the clear coat? or just wet sand it all after i lay the clear coat and buff it out???
thanks guys

I think Car Craft did that last month...

Get some heavy clear plastic and tape it up around the area you want to paint in. Ceiling too. Make sure you have swept thouroughly and blown the entire shop with an air line to move the dust several days ahead. Get some cheapo air filters (furnace type) and tape four or five into the front door opening with the plastic taking up the rest, and since you MUST have a way to move air, use a rear door or window with a fan near it. Use caution here, try to use a squirrel cage fan instead of a box fan so the motor is not in the line of air motion so you don't ignite some vapors. Lightly hose the floor down and BE SURE to loop a chain over the frame to the wet floor so the car is grounded. Static will ignite paint leaving the gun and make a handy flame thrower (cool huh?) all over you fresh bodywork. Wear a respirator. Use lots of lights (flourescent work best) so you can see every angle.

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57 Plymouth Savoy in my family since new, just cosmetically restored, 93 S-10 waiting on the 50 Dodge truck to be built then one s_10 for sale, Angie's mechanic and designated Vette cusser.

To add to what 57plymouth said. I once constructed a booth using plastic. I put eye bolts in the walls. Tied cloths line rope between the eye bolts to form a rectangle around the car. Use a truckers not to get the ropes real tight. Hang 6-8 inches of plastic over the rope and tape. Construct the four sides then hang and tape on a roof. One one side overlap the plastic for a door.

I made two of these. One for doing the body work in to contain the dust. A second clean on for the paint. I had no dirt in the paint.

That's what I was thinking of doing Spitfire. But I also wanted to incorporate some of the things that Angie's mechanic mentioned. I was going to use a big box fan up above in the rafters just below the roof vent. That is, until he mentioned the possible sparks grenading the garage. I wouldn't have considered that.



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Joe
WCA Member
HwyStar@Rochester.rr.com
'69 wallet crusher
'97 Blazer - Bad wheel hop!

You could construct plastic panels with 1/2" or 3/4" EMT conduit and duct tape. This allows you to segregate off your compressor and route outside air into your garage assuming your compressor is stationary and must be in the same room. Instead of securing the panels to the ceiling with eye hooks, I used 2"x2" firring strips and conduit clips. Also, a positive pressure forced air system would prove cleaner than a negative draft air system. For this I would lean toward renting a huge cfm squirrel cage carpet drier over the less powerful box fans.

Bonecrusher,
If I rent a squirrel cage, and construct a plastic "room" around the car like I want to, can I just put the fan on the floor and wrap the plastic around it's body, sort of making the fan part of the wall? Does that make sense? Or should I mount the fan up high on the 'plastic wall'?
I could have the opposite wall setup with 6 or 8 furnace filters.
And I'm assuming that a 'positive forced air' setup would have the fan blowing into the paint room, not sucking air out. Or am I getting the two confused?

Thanks all!

I built a 3' cube filter box for the carpet blower to discharge through before it enters the spray booth. Mine was on a pedestal waist high, but you could mount it higher. Also, the back door of the booth was constructed as a exhaust filter rack.

Cool... some great ideas.
Thanks

You can build a cage using PVC (lawn sprinkler) tubing. It comes in 1/2 in and 3/4 in. And it's cheap.

Once you build the booth, there is a specific locations to place the fan and the filters. The best place for the filters is towards to top of one end of the booth. The fan then is located on the opposite end towards the ground. This will duplicate a cross flow design booth. The fan should be the type with the motor located out side of the fan cage, with a belt drive. The whole fan assembly is then mounted outside of the booth. This keeps the flamable fumes away from any sparks the the motor creats. As fa as sanding goes, do a final sand with 400, spray 3 coats of sealer over the entire vehicle, then 3 coats of base, and the 3 coats of clear. If you got any trash, orange peel, of runs in the paint, wet sand with 1500 and have fun buffing.

aj3147, 3 coats of sealer? Follow the paint manufacturer guidelines, the amount of base coat needed depends on the color (coverage is what counts).

Three coats of sealer are not necessary. One properly applied coat will be fine.
Sanding prior to final coat is a matter of personal preference. I usually do, but it's not required. If you have a good pre-rubbed finish, with no dirt, etc., it's not necessary.
As Austin says, coverage is the ticket regarding how many coats of base are required. Some colors require more than others.

BOOTH? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING BOOTH! The butterflies stuck to the hood, the June bug tracks across the trunk and the kids fingerprints that just had to see if it was really wet make a paint job unique!

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Geezer