Building a Backyard Paint Booth

CrabbyCustoms

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Hi Everyone,

Over the last few months I've researched and built a small paint booth in my backyard so I just wanted to post a quick explanation of how I did it. In my pursuit to learn to restore a motorcycle I've decided that I wanted to perform all aspects of the restoration myself, including the painting. So I preface this by saying that I'm not a professional and before building this booth I had never even painted anything.

I had searched the internet and Youtube for ideas on how to build a backyard paint booth and found very few effective solutions so this what I came up with. I'm sure there are better solutions so feel free to comment on my results.

I started by building an 11X6 ft. shed, my only criteria was that I would be able to rotate a motorcycle frame 360 degrees within the the shed.
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I decided on creating a cross draft negative pressure booth. My plan was to cut intake vents in one side and placing exhaust fans on the other side so that I would paint in only one direction with the air moving across the booth.

I started by building frames from aluminum purchased at my local metal supplier for the intake vents.
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At first I was going to use regular furnace filters for the intake but later switched to proper paint booth intake filters. I chose 16X24 as a standard size.
I Cut holes in the side of the shed and mounted the frames to the exterior.
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I used bolts and butterfly nuts to keep one side accessible for sliding the filters in and out.

For lighting I purchased 2 vapour proof LED receptacles ($100 each).
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I wired them to a male extension cord and ran the cord out of the shed.
For the exhaust side of the booth I decided to use 1.5hp furnace blowers which I purchased used on my local Kijiji ($75 each). I wired the blowers using 24volt AC transformers and wired them to male extension cords which I also ran out of the shed.
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Next I built a box to hold the blowers and paint filters.
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I was unsure how much exhaust power I would need so I postioned them so that I had the option to add another blower if needed. But I've discovered this is plenty of power.
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I used 20X20in. Paint Pockets filters for my exhaust.

**WARNING**
This is the achilles heel of my set up. Even though I have all of my electrical power hooked up outside of the shed I still have highly combustable paint fumes running through my exhaust fan, a spark in the fan could ignite and blow me sky high. Using water based paints would solve this problem.

Also even though these paint pockets paint filters are quite effective paint is making it past them so I have added a second set of filters beyond the exhaust fans.
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I have my paint gun air hose running through a hole into the booth.
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Using a bearing, steel and wood I have built a rig that will spin 360 degrees within the shed making even coverage possible.
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I also built some stands for plastic parts and a spinning table.
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Again, **WARNING** I'm not an experienced painter. this system is only 100% safe if you are using water based paints.

I hope this is helpful to someone. Thanks for members continued advice and support.
 
CrabbyCustoms, nicely done! :)

If you do not want solvent fumes passing through the fan motors then reverse the operation so the fans blow in through dust filters and slightly pressurize the shed. Let the bad air exit via another set of filters under its own steam???
 
Nicely done. I was gonna point out the hazards of an exhaust setup in a paint booth when I scrolled down and saw you addressed it. Did you physically look at the motors to see if they're sealed units? They'd be safe if they were.
 
I’ve been painting cars my entire life. I’ve installed and repaired dozens of paint booths. As a kid, I remember when my father made respirators mandatory(he owned several production paint shops). This pissed the painters off mainly because they could no longer light up a cigarette while they were working. I distinctly remember one painter whose response to this mandate was to poke a hole in the rubber part of his respirator so his cigarette could stick out while he painted. While it’s not advisable, the threat of a spark igniting a fire is slim to none. It’s not like the movies where you flick a cigarette and walk away as the bad guy blows up behind you. Overspray build up combusting in the stacks is more of a threat due to the heat created during the curing process. I have seen this happen.

Our paint booths have a belt drive fan with the motor outside of the exhaust stack. It would be really simple to set something up this way if you’re concerned about the risk, but I would paint in your setup without worry.

Also, there have been some waterborn clear coats hit the market over the last few years, but as far as I know the technology has not yet advanced to the point where shops would consider it a viable option. Most shops that have gone “green” with waterborn paints are still spraying solvent based primers and clears.
 
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