Lets talk of spray booths.

[Dr.H]

There are two groups of spray booths out there, prebuilt and homemade.

While companies such as GSI, Tamiya, Wave, Paasche and Artograph make great booths, a large percentage of model builder can not afford spending the money on them when the decision is between that an other modeling supplies.

The choices commonly end with a poorly made cardboard booth that offers little in the way of safe fume removal or being able to only paint kits outside during parts of the year when the weather isn't to hot, cold or wet..

I was thinking that in this thread, members can talk about the booths they have or ones they've seen. We can take the best aspects of many of these booths and together make a tutorial on how to build a cost effective spray booth without cutting corners when it comes to safety.

Other than just talking about the booths we have or made we need to get an idea of the average cost people are willing to spend in supplies to make a booth. This way we can decide on what building and venting material will work best.
It would also be good to find out what people have in the way or tools to build one. If you needed an table saw and welder to make yours, chances are most people don't have those sitting in their closet ;) .

[Zen-Builder]

I have always used pre-build Boothes, current is the Tamiya one previous one ｗas the Wave booth.
Will soon be upgrading to the Airtex dual vent booth though.
Said that spray-boothes are pretty affordable in japan with prices ranging from $120~$210. Artist boothes which are bigger, have lights, etc are more expensive.

Most of the pre-build ones I have seen on other forums often use a plastic tub. into which a bathroom or kitchen extractor fan is installed.
The discussions really got technical with talk about air-flow per minute, which types of motor to use, etc.

Most difficult part of installing the booth I think is getting it to vent to the outside. Mine is close to the window so I used the Gunze attachment which turns the round tube diameter into a long slim one. This is the same for a pre-build and a home-build one.

Next consideration is filters, some use cardboard filters and others foam.

There are many guides on the net on how to make your own booth and other equipment.

That's all I an think of for now. Sorry, for being vague, but material prices and availability will vary between locations.

[Dr.H]

I think you hit a big point Zen. In Japan companies have concentrated on making affordable hobby spray booths while in America and I'm guessing Europe the prices of a low cost booth start at around $250 and if you decide to order one from Japan the shipping cost will put you up into the local cost range anyway. I've looked at a lot of the guides to making booths online, some are really nice but the parts would cost more that buying one already made.

The biggest problem seems to be finding affordable exhaust fan that are meant to work in such conditions. Bathroom fans do not seem a good choice at all.
Anti-spark fans would be best but are often large and really expensive.
While some booths seem to use a squirrel cage blower(centrifugal) style fan that at least the motor is separate from the blades, many booths use axial(pc) style fans that I doubt are spark resistant. So I assume that these booths rely highly on multi stage filtration consisting of at least a easily replaceable particulate filter backed by a carbon filter to neutralize the explosive fumes.

I think the key is finding the smallest Centrifugal Blower with the highest cfm at the cheapest cost.. lol that's a task in itself. A Dayton blower from Grainger would probably be the only choice and still cost around $50-$80 for a cheap one. But after that you can hook it up to almost any booth you make.

[Dr.H]

Ok I've been working on the blower/fan issue.
From what I can find the best blower for a spray booth might be a Jabsco Blowers.
http://www.jabsco.com/products/industrial_hygienic/ventilation_blowers/index.htm

Their made of plastic with built in flanges and are designed for vapor and fume removal. I believe that only the DC motors are explosion resistant which is no problem since all you have to do is wire in a 12v DC power adapter. They can easily be found at marine stores online.

105 CFM for $55
150 CFM for $90
250 CFM for $95

I haven't seen any other spray booth threads or on line builds use this blowers so I think it's a GKJ first find ;).
Remember bathroom exhaust fans are not made for fumes like these are plus the bathroom fan will cost more for less CFM.

http://www.gkjapan.com/gallery/files/1/flangemount_blower.jpg

[AOJ]

DIY Booth tutorial it's a great idea! I was thinking of getting a prebuilt one, but shipping costs kill my pocket. So I thought doing a cheapo one with a big cardbox and some PC fans ... but finally desisted because I doubted it would work.

Dr.H, do you know how noisy is this blower?

[Dr.H]

I can't find any tech info on the db rating of these blowers so I'll try to call their office at some point.
I'm hoping that they are not to loud for people to want to use because they seem to be a good design and the company has distributors in every continent.
DC motors are generally more quiet than AC ones so I would assume that these blowers would make less noise than bathroom blowers of the same cfm.

[GameraBaenre]

Evolution of my spray booth: http://gamerabaenre.com/spraybooth.htm

[Dr.H]

Thats definitely a step in the right direction GameraBaenre ::thumb .

I see you decided to use a range hood. With the lighting included, nice CFM and a multi speed fan the range could make a very good vent.
The only down sides I could see is the fan is not meant for combustive fumes and would need extra filtration which will cut down on its CFM draw. Also if it's really heavy it would have to be a permanent plywood booth like yours and hard for people to move if they lack room.

[GameraBaenre]

Yeah, I used a fairly portable booth, and just felt like upgrading it and making a permanent spray booth. It's all self contained and can be moved, but it's not meant to be mobile. I also have additional filters in place. I've had people about 6 feet away fiddling on my computer while I was running the thing and spraying lacquers, and the people at the computer couldn't smell a thing. I'm happy with it :)

[Dr.H]

Thats really good :) Your booth is great for giving others ideas on how to do theirs ;).

[Masa]

Pretty cool ideas so far. I'm jealous of all you guys with the big dungeon hobby rooms :p

Making a BOM (Bill of materials) list for putting together a cost-effective home spray booth might be just what the doctor ordered (no pun intended). Especially if all the components are available worldwide. Maybe we can all add replacement (substitute) components from our own countries to the list to make it really universal? Maybe even have two versions - one permanent, and another portable version for those with less workspace.

Remember that a good respirator is a very important part of any safe painting system ::thumb

I'm one of those who cheated and just bought a prebuilt one - GSI Creos' Mr. Spray Booth for $80 :D