Have any of you built a paint booth?

We're in the process of building a pad for our hangar (50x60x16 metal building) and one of the projects that we want to tackle next is building a pole barn and enclosing part of it to be a paint booth, we have multiple projects ('65 C10, '51 3100, several tractors, Rans S-21, etcetera) that will need paint jobs in the next few years as we work on them and we decided that we could invest in building a paint booth instead of hiring it done (the Rans would be particularly expensive) so I'm looking for input and ideas.

We're on the gulf coast so we have High humidity, I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes, and I don't know if we'll be able to do a downdraft system due to the lay of the land. The building will be 14' from slab to eve.

If you have any experience with this we appreciate your input.

 

Since you haven't gotten any "legit" replies, I'll post pics of my redneck paint booth. Used a Harbor Freight exhaust fan with a furnace filter tape to the inlet side. Left part of the top of the booth open so air would be drawn in over the sides. I did get a little overspray drift out, but not much.

 

Good job! It looks clean!

I’ve been doing some research and we can get a pre-fab booth for about 10K, we’re considering a DIY copy, we’re estimating 3K in materials with 2x4 and plywood walls, filtered intake and filtered exhaust, we can go with dual 18” exhaust fans or a single 30” but the 30” requires 3 phase power and I don’t know if we can get 3 phase at the property.

 

tYou know you can get a single to three phase converter right? I am not an expert on them, but I have seen them used when people buy commercial equip, like lathe/drill press, etc and put it in their garage.

https://www.amazon.com/single-phase-three-converter/s?k=single+phase+to+three+phase+converter

 

Was just gonna ask, what you’re using for fans. Gotta have some good fans. High humidity is a problem too.

 

I built one in my 2 car garage. I cleaned the walls and ceiling with a shop vac. Then vacuumed and washed the floor. For exhaust, I removed the top panel on one of the garage doors replacing it with a sheet of plastic. I taped in 3 box fans into the plastic. For intake air, I have a standard door in the rear of the garage. Furnace filters were installed to filter the air. I’ve actually done this 4 times to paint a car, truck, cap, and boat.

 

If you arent going for like super fancy, show car type paint jobs you really dont need to spend that much to get a decent booth. Either build a 2x4 frame or people use 1.5" PVC for the frame. Then just some plastic....you pick the thickness. Do an intake with furnace filters and an exhaust with filters. Just use the basic box fans you find at wal mart. A "neutral pressure" setup is the simplest...basically just like 2 intake and 2 exhaust fans.

Just keep it clean is the main thing. Try not to do body work or anything outside of just painting in it.

 

Yeah, I’m just not a big fan of the decreased motor life with the converters. I think we’ll plan on using single phase unless we can/do decide to get three phase power, the 18” fan will move 3900 CFM at 1/4” pressure.

A 25x14x8 booth would be 2800 Cubic feet, which means that without restriction the volume of air is replaced roughly every 45 seconds (.72 minutes)
A second fan would halve that so with dual fans we could (theoretically) pull the volume of the room every 22-23 seconds.

Is heat the answer to high humidity? I doubt a dehumidifier system would be able to handle the volume of air effectively.

Good to know, we will definitely try to keep it a “clean” room, the door seals are the biggest thing that I’m worried about causing contamination to enter.

My common sense tells me that I won’t get a “perfect” (show quality) paint job but my OCD side is telling me to build a solid wall paint booth to control as many variables as I can, we’re going to have the room to build a permanent booth (it’s going on almost 90 acres) and I think between current projects and future projects, as well as family member projects I can justify the solid structure also.
I was thinking today while at work and we really could do a down draft system, I kind of want to because I think it would be challenging to do it properly while DIY.
I know the down draft system at my uncles auto body shop is fantastic.
Definitely nothing but painting going on in it, we’ll have a true shop to do the other work.

 

It can be. I’ve brought in outside air, heated it, then cooled it & heated it again to the prescribed spec’s but it’s expensive as hell to run. All I can suggest is research what you need. Then go out & see some systems & research it some more. On the other hand, I’ve seen show winners come out of what is basically a glorified garage booth. Whatever you decide, keep safety first. I’ve sprayed some nasty paints & you never get a second chance to get your breathing back once it’s damaged.

 

Getting 3 Phase Power can be crazy expensive !!

More then 15 years ago they quoted us $50,000 to just run the lines 1 mile no new poles .

The kicker the company beside our shop also was interested we thought ok split the $ 50 grand no the electric company wanted another $ 50 grand from them as well.

We are both getting along with 3 Phase Generators not the best but it works