I just finished building this paint booth in my shop and I thought it was worth posting in case someone else could use the ideas.

I've been wanting a paint booth in my shop and was running short of storage space so I built the booth so that I could use the top for storage. It’s 14x22 feet and it's set it up to be a down draft style booth. There is a two speed fan on the top that pushes air into a 30”x16’ plenum that is lined with two layers of pleated furnace filters. The plenum opens down into the booth. The exhaust goes out through filters in the door. I originally planned a more elaborate exhaust system but I ran of of steam and went with the filters in the door.

I painted the jams etc on my car this weekend and it seemed to work well. Overspray was very minimal. I even sprayed for several minutes before I realized I had forgotten to put my respirator on. The exhaust filters did their job and there was no evidence of overspray in my shop. I have a large fan that pushed air through the shop to keep the air moving.

By going downdraft I avoided the need for an explosion proof fan and because it is a positive pressure booth there are no issues with dirt getting sucked in through any gaps or leaks. The fan is a 30 inch whole house attic fan that I picked up at Lowes. There is a total of 17 four foot light fixtures. The walls are lined with tile board.

Don

Wow, thats pretty cool. I take it you paint alot?

Wow! Great job. Be sure to post the first job that comes out of there!

The one I set up last weekend is not near as elaborate or permanent but it worked great, If I had the room I would do something similar to yours.....looks great and Im sure very handy to have avalable at all times.

Nice looking home booth :thumbsup:

Please tell me you are going to put another filtered box, or at least a fairly fine screen box, over the intake to the fan :confused:
An input filter box will prevent most of the crud build-up on the blades you'd see with your present set-up - to say nothing of the issues if something/someone gets 'sucked' into it ...

Awesome job. I just wish I lived close to you, lol. No way we could get away with anything like that out here in Calif.

Sweet, I know where I'm taking my car to paint it now :D j/k man. I'll have to build something similar down the road.

Wow, thats pretty cool. I take it you paint alot?

No, not really. I have two projects going. I'll paint one this year and the other is a couple of years away. The booth will do double duty as storage on top and a clean area for assembly work. Max use will be 1 car per year and some parts painting.

Don

Nice looking home booth :thumbsup:

Please tell me you are going to put another filtered box, or at least a fairly fine screen box, over the intake to the fan :confused:
An input filter box will prevent most of the crud build-up on the blades you'd see with your present set-up - to say nothing of the issues if something/someone gets 'sucked' into it ...

The fan is covered when the booth is not in use. I was thinking of adding a prefilter but the actual number of hours that the fan is running will be small. I hadn't thought about dust on the blades so maybe I will add the prefilter as you suggest.

Thanks,
Don

About what was the cost of this booth? This is a great idea...

nice work.
about how many hours do you think you have in it?

I am going to be doing about the same scale of painting and was planning a plastic sheet type booth- but man yours sure looks cool!

-Matt

You know, that doesn't seem all that different than what we use at my work for a paint booth... Interesting...

About what was the cost of this booth? This is a great idea...

Rough guess is:
Fan $300
Lumber $1000
Lighting $300
Filters $100

Not cheap but the savings on one paint job should even it out. I had a bad paint prison experience with my last project and I'm not going to go there again.

nice work.
about how many hours do you think you have in it?


I am going to be doing about the same scale of painting and was planning a plastic sheet type booth- but man yours sure looks cool!



-Matt

Around 35 hours.

I was going to do the same but then it just took up more of my already vanishing floorspace. This way I've got a place to store a bunch of parts and body panels etc. I think it will be nice to have it there handy when I want to paint a frame or parts etc.

... The booth will do double duty as storage on top and a clean area for assembly work. Max use will be 1 car per year and some parts painting.

Don

Don:
You efforts will surely pay off with the quality of work you will now be able to do :thumbsup:
I've made up a few 'plastic-tents' in my shop to do some jobs and just these simple efforts give visible results with greatly reduced dust/crap reduction and rework.
The pre-filters will save you some extra headaches down the road for very little investment now.
You might also want to add a row of screw-in type hooks down the center area of off to the one side or the front to hang the 'small-stuff' (like fender extensions, valance panels and etc.) by wire so you can shoot them at the same time you're doing the main panels. They will also come in handy when shooting them little pieces for the suspension, interior and engine bay ...

Looking forward to some pictures of your first efforts in there :yes:

John

Here's some shots of what will be painted first. Yeah, I know it's a Pontiac, but I learned how to do it on this site. The next project is a 64 GTO.

I hope to put down the first two coats of base in a couple of weeks. Not sure I will get to it this weekend.

Don

Good idea, start with the Pontiac and once you perfect your painting skills then do the Camaro!

Good idea, start with the Pontiac and once you perfect your painting skills then do the Camaro!

That was exactly my thinking. :) I just couldn't pull the trigger on a similar Camaro for 4 times the money.

Don

I have a home made booth and when I built it every one I spoke with about it made mention of explosion proof.Is your fan explosin proof and the exposed lights I would turn on when you get ready to paint and shut them off when the paint clears.Not to down your job just to make sure your safe I would look into it.this is my booth I recessed the lights with explosion proof glass.I realy dont think its needed though because if I'm on fire I dont think glass sticking in me will be to bad.
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii15/davidcalligan/DSC_2791.jpg
http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii15/davidcalligan/DSC_2797.jpg

Nice booth David. I hope my first paint job looks half as good as yours.

Since the fan is pushing air into my booth rather than pulling it out of the booth I'm not too worried about it being explosion proof. That is one of the reasons I chose to build a positive pressure booth. As you have suggested I turn the lights on before I start painting and leave them on until long I have finished painting. I also purposely placed the light and fan switches outside of the booth.

Thanks,
Don

I think that you thought it out pretty well... May I ask, what was the reason for going with a positive pressure booth over a negative pressure booth? I ask only because I don't know the difference... I am not questioning your build, I just want to know for my own knowledge...

Thanks!

Nice job on the paint booth Don.

A positive pressure booth is one where the fan pushes filtered air into the booth. This means that the air pressure in the booth is higher than outside. The major advantage to this is that you do not have the fan pulling dirt into the booth through any gaps in the booth so you do not have to be quite as careful about door seals etc. The second advantage is that the fan is not pushing paint fumes, it is pushing fresh air which reduces the risk of the fan motor igniting the fumes.

Low cost cross flow booths are negative pressure and use the fan on the back wall to extract paint fumes while fresh air is drawn in through filters in the door. In downdraft booths the fan pushes filtered fresh air into the top of the booth and it exits through filters that line the wall along the floor (a true downdraft booth has a pit in the floor to extract the fumes). In my case I simplified the exhaust ducting by using filters in the bottom of the door. This was a compromise that I made to save some time and money.

Don

I guess that wouldn't be exhaust now that I think about it,paint would be all over the garage.Have you sprayed anything in it yet to see how it exhausts my booth when I do a overall gets a little cloudy my booth dumps into a fifty five gallon drum I fill with water to catch the over spray.When you spray something let us know how it works....

I guess that wouldn't be exhaust now that I think about it,paint would be all over the garage.Have you sprayed anything in it yet to see how it exhausts my booth when I do a overall gets a little cloudy my booth dumps into a fifty five gallon drum I fill with water to catch the over spray.When you spray something let us know how it works....

Hi David. If you read the original post it says the following:

I painted the jams etc on my car this weekend and it seemed to work well. Overspray was very minimal. I even sprayed for several minutes before I realized I had forgotten to put my respirator on. The exhaust filters did their job and there was no evidence of overspray in my shop. I have a large fan that pushed air through the shop to keep the air moving.

Thanks again,
Don

Update: Here's the first car out of my booth. I learned quite a lot the hard way on this one.

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp31/dhutton_pics/firebird809053.jpg

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp31/dhutton_pics/firebird809022.jpg

Don

The Firebird looks good. So if you had to do it over again is there anything you would change on your booth and how did it perform when doing a bigger job than the jambs?

The Firebird looks good. So if you had to do it over again is there anything you would change on your booth and how did it perform when doing a bigger job than the jambs?

The booth worked well but I don't have any reference points to compare it to. I did not get a lot of trash in my paint. There was no overspray drifting into my shop, the exhaust filters caught it.

My biggest issue was that my compressor was undersized. That will be fixed before I tackle another car. The other lesson I learned was buy a quality gun. It was like night and day when I switched to an Iwata gun.

Don

The booth and firebird, looks really good. Must make it a whole lot easier to paint that way. What size garage do you have?

The booth and firebird, looks really good. Must make it a whole lot easier to paint that way. What size garage do you have?

My shop is 42x60 so the booth only takes up one corner. I use the top for storage.

Don

That is still great to do it yourself in your own shop no less! What size compressor were you running you said was undersized?

That is still great to do it yourself in your own shop no less! What size compressor were you running you said was undersized?

It was a Campbell Hausfeld 25 gallon. 5 hp rated "Extreme Duty" model but I did a little digging around and it's more like 2 hp. I just picked up an 80 gallon 5 hp 2 stage unit so I should be in better shape the next time.

I am not the shapest pencil in the box I read all the posts now and am on top of it now.Paint looks good is that the stock way to stripe a Firebird.How fine are your filters in the roof and I would cover the fan when not in use just to keep debris out as much as you can.Good luck with the booth and keep painting.....

just wondering... do you wet the out going filters to help catch overspray at all?

I am not the shapest pencil in the box I read all the posts now and am on top of it now.Paint looks good is that the stock way to stripe a Firebird.How fine are your filters in the roof and I would cover the fan when not in use just to keep debris out as much as you can.Good luck with the booth and keep painting.....

Those stripes are based on the stripes of a 69 Trans Am. They only came blue, I did them black because I wanted something different and prefer a black interior over blue.

The filters in the roof are doubled up pleated furnace filters. There is a cover over the fan when it is not in use.

Thanks,
Don

just wondering... do you wet the out going filters to help catch overspray at all?

Good idea, I never thought of that. The exhaust filters are coarse but they are two inches thick. They seem to do a fairly good job. I can also remove them and shake them out.

Thanks,
Don