Technical Paint booth

I have been reading about the inflatable paint booths that you can put up in the driveway. Given the outrageous cost of paint these days a few hundred dollars for a filtered air enclosure seems pretty reasonable. Have any of you out there used one? If so how did it work? Any other thoughts would be appreciated. Have just redone my driveway and I would prefer not to get overspray all over and bugs and dust in my paint. MIKE

 

@Bandit Billy to the white courtesy phone please!!!

 

They need LOTS of anchoring! as with any inflatable, if the wind comes itll be rockin. Ive used one at an event once, worked really nicely for the purpose.
And when the sun is out, it can get pretty hot inside. Kinda like a greenhouse.
Im buying/building a new shop. If Im unable to make a permanent booth in it I plan to buy a portable, if possible I'll set it up inside to eliminate wind.

 

This is cool (from another thread).

 

This a Vevor booth made from 100% chinesium.

As mentioned, they need tying down like your kangaroo. I used 5 gallon buckets of sand. The booth comes with stakes and tie down cord.

I rigged up an explosion proof fan to draw fumes from the booth and routed it through a box of furnace filters. There was no paint staining on my concrete.

They get hot fast when the sun comes out. I would keep some slow reducer on hand in case of extreme temps in the booth.

 

Helped a friend paint two cars in one. He set it up in a garage instead of outside. It seemed to work fine and was pretty easy to set up. One down side is you’re not supposed to leave it up for an extended time, so he painted the car(s), let the paint flash for a bit, then rolled the car out and deflated the booth; can’t leave the car in there overnight (per the instructions).

Edit: I should explain how they work. There are two blowers : one to inflate the structure and another to provide airflow in the booth. The instructions say you can’t leave the blowers running for more than ? hours (can’t recall how many). That’s why you can’t just leave the car in it overnight, etc.

John

 

I worked with a guy who painted cars at home on the side. He had a car port attached to the garage and hung up plastic tarps to make the booth. It was pretty ingenious, he had in the end a fan-port duct taped into the tarp. The tarps hung on screws driven into the structure and he taped up the voids. He did pretty nice paint jobs.

 

check out wedding tents on ebay or amazon 10x20 with six windows three per side around 120 dollars other sizes are available look ok for a few uses

 

Used one a couple of months ago. Cost about $1k but worked well

 

Yeah, I agree on the no-overnight parking but just for the reason that we get power outages occasionally. No power means no air and the booth collapses on your fresh paint job. I empty mine at night and deflate.

Could you imagine blowing a breaker or having an outage in the middle of a paint coat? Many, many bad words about Edison's mother and Tesla just for the hell of it.

 

I put mine inside and built a frame inside it out of 1 1/4 PVC in case the power goes out and you can leave your work inside overnight without the blowers running

 

I’ve been in one. It was indoors though.
It worked well.
Wind would be the only issue.
But the one I messed with did a good job

 

The way the wind has been around here lately, that thing would be in the next county in the morning. Just keeping it in place long enough to paint the car could be a challenge. I could picture the sides of it laid over against the roof of the car before the job was done.
It wouldn't fit in my garage, its too high.

 

I’m cheap, I built a paint shanty.

 

I built a small building 16x32 that I could store large easily movable things in.....like my tractor or things on pallets like sheetmetal components for future projects. When I built it I added used flourescent lights into the walls and ceiling and a downdraft thru the ceiling. I placed a couple small drums passing thru the rear walls and bought a cheap $50 squirrel cage blower to hook to one of them. The kind that has an external motor and a belt so paint won't build up on the motor. I can put the drum lids on when not painting and keep critters out and heat in. Later I added a crane inside to lift the heavier things like car bodies and frames off/on a trailer.
Point simply is that anyone building a shop can plan ahead and have a shop that can be converted to a paint booth very easily on occasion if they just plan ahead.
This same thing can be accomplished by adding a lean-to to an existing shop.

If I was doing this and had no paint shop, I'd look into buying a cheap easily erected metal carport. Then stretch plastic around it and a tarp for the front. Then add a squirrel cage and a filter somewhere for air flow. Probably need some temporary lights and portable work lights. When done you have a nice carport or you can sell it to someone and get most of your money back.

Nothing says you can't use a paint booth for a shop rather than a shop for a paint booth.

 

One thing to watch out for, is that the more coats of paint you put on the stickier them floors get, so watch it doesnt keep sticking to your feet and pulling up etc whenever youre walking. Its an issue when you plasticate your garage floor or whatever, but not having used an inflateable booth before (pro painter with real booths here) they may have solved that problem by now..

 

Not trying to piss on the parade but around here the locals would be on you in five minutes for regulatory reasons. In many areas you can pretty much do what you want but there are a lot of places where stuff like this is really frowned on.

I have a Devilbis booth that is no longer EPA compliant, ( something about the direction the flanges inside fold), and as such it is just knocked down and will most likely be scrapped at some point as it no longer meets standards. Another shop near me has the same situation. He has a beautiful booth in his shop but isn't allow to use it. He paints in the shop, HUH?) Just wanted to add this before guys dropped some fairly decent cash for a temp booth and end up being fined.

 

I'm cheaper. I paint under my open carport.

 

I'm getting ready to paint me truck, so I'm watching this.
The last two vehicles I had painted were done in my buddy's paint booth, but a couple months ago, he sold his paint booth (out of city compliance). He is in the process of moving his shop out of the city, but I suspect that will be a few months away. The few cars he has painted since (the 1st one in a rented paint booth, and the 2nd one inside the shop after hours) leave a lot to be desired, not that my junk is great, but really?
My garage has an 8' ceiling, with about 12" clearance above the truck, and there is a bunch of stuff in there. I've painted in my shop before, and don't really want that mess in it now (the body dust is bad enough). Painting in the driveway is pretty sketchy (see the pics) , our white house is 4' off the driveway. The wife probably wouldn't be too happy with a blue over spray haze. A portable garage off the west side of the drive would work, but I can't be too far from the garage because I don't have enough hose for my compressor (located at the back of the garage), to reach much farther. I'd also have to deal with the painted grass under foot.

 

When I was teaching auto mechanics I bought a bunch of 1-1/2 inch pvc pipe and the kids and I built a framework for a booth that we use visqueen to cover it with furnace filters on the inlet and we ran it though the exhaust system that we hooked to the cars when we ran them in the shop. The booth was cheap and worked great and could be torn down and tucked away in about fifteen minutes. One of those garage tent frameworks with visqueen on it would work pretty good and you can often find those for a few bucks after the original covers get torn up.

 

Check out Blue One's homebuilt booth that is simple and reasonable cost.. This is where the build starts. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/26-t-roadster-pick-up-build-thread.460009/page-35
We build a similar paint booth to paint an airplane project. Construction is simple and works great.

 

Just sprayed my sons '51 Chevy rag...in garage, covered the walls with plastic. I only got one bug(fly) on paint whose wings will live under 4 coats of clear .
It helps to have very understanding neighbors..check it out

 

I feel like the static in one of those inflatable booths would be unreal. Can anyone with real experience comment on that?

 

The floor still gets sticky. I did base/clear so only the clear coat was sticky.

 

I have not had any issue with static electricity in the booth. My only issue has been the temp. Other than that the booth is very handy and blows up and takes down in seconds.

 

Paint your car in the morning..... rent it out as bounce house for kid's birthday parties in the afternoon. Win-win!

 

Doing some touch up painting this morning in the bouncy house. 6:00 am (I know right? There's actually two 6 O'Clocks every day I hear, I just thought there was just one at the end of happy hour) Anyhoo, temp in the booth after setting it up was 65. By 8:00 am it was 80. Mind you it is 60 outside with a high today of 77. While I was painting the temp rose as high as 93 and got as low as 75 every time the sun decided to show up or roll behind a cloud.

I had to adjust air, material and pattern all morning to keep up with it but I am getting better at it. Thus is life in the bouncy house paint and body shop.

 

Bandit Billy, continuing to make adjustments as I paint is something I'd rather not deal with. My painting skills are worse then my body work skills. Runs are already almost guaranteed.

I looked into Blue One's spray booth. I can't imaging what that would cost to build these days with the lumber prices where they are. Since this is going to be a 1 time use thing, that nice homemade paint booth probably isn't in my future.

I sure hope I can work a deal out with my buddy. Otherwise it looks like a blue tint to the side of the house and driveway, or the old paint brush method may be in my future.

 

@gene-koning , yesterday it was getting too warm in the booth to clear the rear fenders and I had enough clear in the pot to handle it so I shot them in the middle of my garage floor. No plastic, no nothing. They turned out very nice. Sometimes I think we overthink this paint booth thing.