thinking of using my garage to paint my coupe, tips needed, i wil need to cover some stuff, but still have the room to do whatever....
I hung plastic sheeting on all 4 sides, made them roll up like a window shade, and taped the corners,if you don't EVERYTHING will have paint on it, everything !
Cover everything as already suggested. MOST IMPORTANT - make sure you don't have any pilot lights burning or ignition start pilots in the area. NO motors with brushes that can arc, even a battery operated drill can arc and cause an explosion.
Sweep and blow everything out a day or so before you paint. Just before you start to spray, wet the floor down but no standing water otherwise the air hose splashes water on the paint. Put a couple of ac filters in a couple windows and box fans in the other windows blowing out. I've painted all my cars in my garage and they usually come out nice with very little if any dirt in the paint. Good luck and don't rush it....
I set up my garage to do the spraying of all my car related stuff. There is so much to prepare for and contemplate. Here are some general suggestions: Have everything you need available before you start painting. Clean your gun(s) (I have a color and a clear gun for two stage paints) really good a few days before you paint. Clean your air hose off really well with a good degreaser. You gotta have a good water trap system set up to keep your air dry. Plan to color sand and rub the paint out after you are done 'cuz you will probably have some dust nibs in it. Do the plastic as maniac suggested. Wipe down the car with a good pre-paint degreaser. Try not to touch the preped surface with your bare hands after degreasing it. Have a good fan to suck out over spray from under the garage door or where ever. Keep the floor damp while spraying to keep the dust down. Don't have the floor so wet that you will splash dirty water on your fresh paint coats. If you can talk someone into it, have a helper to move the hose around with you so you don't have to manuver that around. Wipe the car down really well with a tack rag before painting and between color coats if you are using a two stage paint system. Strain your paint well. WEAR A RESPERATOR WITH NEW FILTERS AND PREFILTERS!. I can't stress that enough. Get as much light in the garage as possible. Especially pay attention to light down low so you can see the lower portion of your side panels, under your trunk and under wheel well lips, etc. Wear coveralls and a hood to keep lint from your clothes and hair out of the paint. I usually put a little metal flake in the paint if I can get away with it. It hides the dust spots that show up even after rubbing out the paint. It looks cool as well. Have fun. Enjoy the task. Michael
Hang plastic, cover everything, wet down the floor and DO NOt US AN EXHAUST FAN. have a fan blowing into the garage you want positive presure that way you will be blowing clean air thru the fans and not fumes that could cause an unwanted explosion. If I can do it anyone can Good luck Gary
All of the above tips are good and really help, but they didn't emphasize the good lighting enough. I hang lights on the walls about 3 ft. off the ground to get good light on the lower panels, wheel wells, and rockers. They are really hard to see well, and get good coverage, without good lighting. Red
Something that needs to stressed here, and I only say this from 30+ years of painting cars in everything from driveways, to garages, to downdraft booths...safety first...this is something that gets a once over, "wear a respirator with new filters..."...good advice, but if you're doing this in an environment that does not have enough CFM of fresh clean air introduced into it, a respirator will only work so well for so long, then you are in an atmosphere FULL of evaporating solvents, and airborn paint solids, and catalyzed nastey chemicals that can KILL YOU GRAVEYARD DEAD!... not to mention the risk of explosion from s room full of solvent vapors...that being said, my suggestion is to rent a spray booth if possible, but you MUST at least wear a resprator, preferably a full face, forced air unit that covers the eyes, with pristine clean air coimng from a protected source that will not be contaminted with paint fumes (found this out the hard way, stupid me...) Catalyzed paint, isocyanates and other nasty chemicals enter your body through your lungs, yes, but THROUGH THE EYES AND SKIN, ALSO! Aside from fresh air, you need to wear a paint suit, taped at the wrists and maybe ankles, and gloves, and a head sock,...TREAT SPRAYING PAINT AS YOU WOULD SPRAYING ANY POISON, because that's what it is, damage caused by misuse of automotive refinishing chemicals cannot be "fixed" with a trip to the doctor once the damage is done, well...Just my 2 cents worth...good luck with your paint job...
remember the paint will displace oxygen in an enclosed space, your respirator doesn't supply air, unless it's an air supplied respirator, you need to keep air moving into the garage, or you could end up passing out. people have died painting in enclosed garages without adequate ventilation.
you posted it the same time i was posting it lol. I was going to mention that paint catalyizes in your lungs just like it does on the car.
I've had better luck painting outside on a calm clear morning than painting in a garage. You can also see better and the overspray is not as much of a concern. I always color sand and buff my paint jobs anyways so some additional dust is no big deal. Good luck!
Follow the advice from these 2 guys and you'll be set. My "booth" is basically exactly what these guys mentioned cept its a little more permanent. Fire up the buffer when you're done and youll think it was shot in a downdraft.
I have painted at least a dozen vehicles in the garage. Here is how I did it: Using most of a 2 car garage (and cheesing off my Father for a while, then my wife) Use a pressure washer to clean the floor. Let dry Use 2 x 2 lumber to make a frame work for the plastic (on 16" centers). This framework has the plastic on the outside. I ran the plastic from walls to floor and used blue tape to seal the seams. I made up panels for easy setup and tear down. I then used two furnace blowers to draw air out of the improvised booth, and an entire wall of furnace filters to allow filtered fresh air in. The two blowers had furnace filters on the discharge to minimize the cloud. These filters were changed between color and clear I hung 4 sets of florescent lights overhead, and two strips of lights down the sides. I had two air lines, one on the left, and one on the right side of the vehicles. A table was set up to mix the paint in the booth. The vehicles were washed prior to moving into the booth, allowed to dry in the sun, then sol-prep'd and tacked Use of a good respirator is a must - regardless of where you are spraying. Of all the cars that I sprayed, I had 3 runs that I needed to correct, one primer lift from the wrong primer. 2 vehicles were color sanded and buffed, the others had a factory looking finish with no post spray touch up. Only one had dust, dirt, leaves and bugs as halfway thru the spray job, one of the walls let loose because of the 30mph winds that kicked up and blew thru the garage door (mother nature abhors a vacuum)
I tape the plastic to the floor as well so it doesn't blow around. Leave the big door up about 6" and have 2 fans blowing out mounted in a piece of plywood the fits in the man door. Must use a HVLP gun or we loose it in the cloud . Seems to work ok. Wet the floor once and never again. Polished sealed floor is slippery when wet. Still waiting for the opportunity to paint a car outside. Mind you my kid now paints for a living so we now have access to a booth on week-ends
Do it in the morning before it heats up too much.Don't do it in the afternoon when the bugs are out,they absolutely LOVE the new paint.Don't do it near trees.Must be a calm day,low humidity.Spring is better than summer in my part of the country for painting outside.Also don't do it if all your fumes and overspray are going to piss off your neighbor because its probably illegal in most parts to spray paint outside.I have had some good results painting in the driveway but you will probably have to color sand.Its near impossible to keep all the insects and dust off.If you can get lacquer,it dries really fast and you can get it covered without bugs.Use a HVLP if you can,you will waste much less paint from overspray and the air through the unit is usually dryer.
Lots of good advice. My only recomendation is to emphasize that you need to let all the airborne dust settle for at least 12 hours before you spray. That means, all prep work is done, no one is allowed to enter the garage during this time. All your gear should be in the "clean" area. Enter the clean area, wipe the car down with clean tack rags, mix your paint, and spray.
Do it on a weekday morning when everyone has gone to work, ore your neibors may call the authorites. Been there ,done that.
Years ago when I painted in my garage I would hose everything down (with water) a couple of days before painting and the evening before I would use a spray bomb to get rid of flys and bugs. Always did it in the mornings before it warmed up outside.
you can use my spraybooth its called the great outdoors piss of your neahbours like they do when they start that kin lawn mower at 630 on sunday morning a little bitt of colour sanding and buffing never hurt anyone kev
I understand people will do what they want to do, but I just wanted to make sure anyone reading this thread about "garage painting" has the full story. Please take a moment and read these posts by other HAMBers about their experiences painting in garages. Might be worth a few minutes of your time... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...angerous+paint http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...angerous+paint
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