Indoor Painting

[bscotti]

What do you all do for airbrushing/spray painting indoors? The cold weather has pushed me to the basement! I'm not keen on filling the house with fumes.

Brian

[Tadracket]

I use fascolor paints. They are water based, very little odor and taste like candy.

Just kidding on the candy part. Don't drink paint unless you are really thirsty and can't get up go to the fridge.

[Eau Rouge]

Basement (cold air does bad things to the paints and sprays) as long as it's heated properly. Respirator if you are in a room that has no venting.

Definitely acrylic paints, without a doubt.

[Tadracket]

Have you considered building a small paint booth?

[Minicooper 35]

I use Faskolor or Createx Autoair (that's the same stuff from what I know). Since the acrylic paint needs a bit longer for drying I use a hair dryer to gently warm the body for an accelerated drying process. But if you let the colour dry to fast, it will not stick into the body that well ...

[bgruen]

Just got done painting a Tamiya FAV with Rustolium. Painted it on the porch (50F outside) and let it sit out there for an hour or so to let most of the distillates evaporate. Then I moved it into a small bathroom with a space heater for 24 hours to dry (80F). I'll let the parts sit out on my desk for a week to cure before assembly (~68F).

Spraying and initial drying for anything with distillates should be done outside. A cardboard box and a hairdryer can be used outside for the initial drying phase, but keep in mind that it could (in theory) start a fire. If you do this keep it away from other combustibles and watch it closely.

Bob

[bscotti]

I'm starting to think about making a spray booth only because some of the colors/styles I want to use aren't acrylic. What would you use for an exhaust fan?

[Erich Reichert]

My shop is in my parents basement (got evicted from my house when Jr. came along) so I have a paint booth and hooked it up to one of those window vents for dryers. This way the booth blows everyting right out... completely fume free.

[Tadracket]

I like Erich's idea. That is awesome.

I don't have access to a window so my plan is a little different. Being an IT professional, my system is going to be PC based. I have a PC power supply that I am going to jumper over and the will hook up to 3 or 4 80mm case fans. They will be controlled variably so I can monitor how much air flows across the work area. The base of the booth will be a house filter around 12x20 ish.

I want to put a small heater in the intake but I think it will ineffective since I have to have an opening in the front to reach in and paint. If I could do a small hole in the front that my arm will seal, that might work. I am working on an X Y rotisserie to mount the subject to. My left hand will rotate the parts via joystick left, right and up, down while the right hand paints.

That way, I have a heated and controlled environment to paint in that is also portable. We'll see how it turns out.

[bscotti]

Erich, What do you use for an exhaust fan?

[shodog]

It just isn't winter time without that great smell of Pactra or Tamiya rattle can paint in the air.

A lot of the time I will spray out side and then bring it in to let it cure. Still stinks and wifey complains but it's not as bad as if you sprayed it in house.

[Tadracket]

Erich, What do you use for an exhaust fan?

Something like this, I would assume:



http://heating-and-cooling.hardwarestore.com/34-171-dryer-vent-hoods/adjustable-window-plate-white-684362.aspx


EDIT: My bad. There is no fan with this unit.

Check these out though. I'm sure something can be done with one of them. I use to install these when I wired beech houses. Nothing to them:

[Tadracket]

I had one of these in my Jet Ski. < $30 @ boaters world.



Just need a 12 volt power supply.

One important thing to remember is ignition protection. The last thing you want to do is set your house on fire because you are sucking flammable paints through an ignition source. It would probably never happen but it is not a chance I would take.

I am going with this model instead of the PC fans.

[mikedealer]

they sell a paint booth for $199 on ebay thats 22" long that will do the job it looks like

[Tadracket]

They have 3 at Micro-Mark. Here is the $300 job:



Mine won't be as neat. But I can build a much better unit and at less than half the price.