Trevor Boicey wrote:
>
snipped message about blowing in vs sucking out
> It could indeed be the wrong direction, but in the past
> a friend of mine tried the fan pointing out and had
> a serious problem.
>
It is true that most (nearly all) commercial booths exhaust the air. However,
there are
alternative approaches. If you go to
http://www.horizonweb.com/wwwboard/Spray_101/wwwboard.html
and search a bit you will come across a description of the author's booth
(sprays high
end show cars). He built a home spray booth which blew air in. His experience
was that
with a home unit, exhausting the air tended to creat many sources of dust -
kind of hard
to build a hermetically sealed home garage. Some benefits - he claims better
dust
control plus you don't need an explosion proof fan/motor.
> If I used an old furnace fan with a few furnace filters blowing
> air out, could I expect to get all the paint out of
> the exhaust air?
You would be exposing the furnace fan motor (not explosion proof) to the
overspray,
potentially dangerous.
>
> I worry about painting all my neighbourhood blue. (including
> my own house and other cars!)
Some of the other factors to consider : your health - auto paints seem to range
from
mildly dangerous to outright deadly. Some of the two part paints (Imron, etc)
and most
of the hardner activated paints (quite common for the clear coat of a base coat
/ clear
coat system) release isocyinates - dangerous to breath dangerous to exposed
skin also. I
don't want to sound like a nag, just make sure that you make an informed
decision as to
the risks you are willing to take.
I have painted a few cars at home in the past and I plan to do another in the
near
future. Here are a few thoughts:
a. I would go for a blow in system
b. Clean, clean, clean the garage. Use compressed air and or a leaf blower all
over
(ceiling & joists) to try to dislodge any dust. Clean again.
c. Staple plastic sheeting to the walls.
d. Have plenty of lighting, consider bringing in temporary lights placed about
sholder
hight
e. Dampen the floor before painting
f. Ask your paint supplier about using lacquer, seems to be out of vogue these
days but
has several important advantages for the home sprayer (easy to repair errors,
not very
sensitive to dust) and some disadvatages (more labor intensive, not as durable,
needs to
be periodically rebuffed)
g. If your compressor is slightly undersized you would benefit from running the
output of
the compressor through a length or two of 8 to 10 foot metal pipe and then to a
water
separator.
Good luck.
-Roger
ps: Oh yeah, the address above talks about a video that he sells for about
$30.00. I
plan to buy one soon, sounds like a good deal.
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