Home built paint booths?

[lat42MS]

I have a big exhaust fan in one of the windows. You will get plenty of particles in the paint, but that's what wet sanding is for. I put on a lot of clear (5-6 coats) so I could knock it down without having to worry about going through.

[TheRedStealth]

reverand!
spray guns give even the best compressors a run for their money. its like having a constant leaking airline.
you will either want kestrel or devilbis spray gun. either suction or gravity, personaly i prefer suction.

A small compressor will be fine for small parts, but not big parts. You might be able to get a bumper done but def not a hood or roof.
To keep from using up all your air before your done with the part, spary it 'wet'. By this I mean have a lot of paint/clear coming out in comparision to air flow. But be careful this leads to runs. Keep your passes fast if your sparying heavy.

get fine and medium paint strainers. and a couple of mixing tubs. and a good mask. have plenty of standard thinners for cleaning the guns and equipment. and remember clear is mixed 2:1 ratio. ..... and it goes solid in the spray gun too if left too long... dont ask how i know

like the other guy said, check the clear for its mixing ratio, the clear we use in the shop is 41, clear:activatior:reducer. On that note there are different types of reducers too, ones that evaporate faster then others, this comes to play when temp. is an issue. If its cold you need a faster evaping reducer or you will run badly.

[RL7]

I've used a lot of different setups to try to make this work. First I used a portable tent to try to paint an entire car. I sprayed down the walls and floor at times, but it was really more hassle than it was worth. My compressor was not really up to par at the time. I would not recommend doing that. The clear would really fog up and it ended up clogging my respirator, making it a suffocation device. I've found that air flow does help a lot. I like to have a big fan blowing onto the area and once I actually begin painting, I have it cross flowing behind me. I use large tarps often. I wash them off before I hang them and I let them dry. I spray down the entire area well with compressed air before I spray. I usually put a bench or something under the tarp to act as a platform. You want your piece off the ground or it will pick up a lot of dust. You want to spray the piece upright if at all possible. It is more prone to running this way, but you wont get as much dust. I get pretty much no dust in my paint when I spray a part in my tarped-off area provided it's upright, off the ground, and I have the air flowing. Only problem is sometimes a bug will decide he wants to play in the clear. I hate when that happens.

I've gone to pretty extreme lengths to make sure my air is clean, but there's nothing more frustrating than having bad air fisheye the crap out of your job. I have my air going through a 50 ft air hose, an auto a/c condenser, a large oil/water seperator and then to my normal hose. And just in case anything decides it can get through all that, I have a second oil/water seperator/filter right before the gun. I've got a bigger compressor now, so I'm going to have to make sure that that goofy set-up can flow enough cfm.

As long as you have a clean area with minimal dust, good air flow, and good lighting, you should be ok. If you do spray down the walls and ceiling, give it time to completely dry before you paint. You don't want drops of water (or sweat...) getting into the paint. The floor can be wet when you paint, it helps keep the dust down. Just don't kick up any water.

You'll have a better time if you buy a better gun. The cheap HF guns will get the job done, I have a few of them, but they are pretty far from ideal. A nicer gun will atomize the paint better and give better results. My favorite gun I have is a Warwick 903G (http://www.warwick-sprayguns.com/903G.htm). It's china made like the HF guns, but it's really a good gun. It is advertised as a touch up gun but it sprays a larger fan than any HF gun. It's a LVLP gun, so it has lower air consumption than HVLP guns. I think this is an ideal gun for someone spraying at home with a sub 5hp compressor. I use it exclusively for clear and it can lay it down very nicely. Most of the time there is pretty much no orange peel and I don't need to buff at all. Their 904 gun is also lvlp and probably works just as well. I got that gun at a local finishmaster for a little over $100.

Because of the heat and humidity down here in Florida, modern high solid clears are pretty much impossible to spray without orange peel if you follow the mixing ratio on the tech sheet. I almost always add some amount of reducer. The mixing ratios on the tech sheets are mostly to keep VOCs in compliance, not necessarily maximize performance. The clear will get sprayed and then dry before it has time to flow/level and you get orange peel. The only problem with adding reducer is, well you reduce the paint, so you have to spray more on to have the same coverage and this is especially important with clear. This means you are usually spraying on the verge of running. Hopefully they get waterborne paints worked out so we don't have to mess with these nasty chemicals as much. Kinda babbling on here... there's probably something useful in all of that.

[TheRedStealth]

I've gone to pretty extreme lengths to make sure my air is clean, but there's nothing more frustrating than having bad air fisheye the crap out of your job. I have my air going through a 50 ft air hose, an auto a/c condenser, a large oil/water seperator and then to my normal hose. And just in case anything decides it can get through all that, I have a second oil/water seperator/filter right before the gun. I've got a bigger compressor now, so I'm going to have to make sure that that goofy set-up can flow enough cfm.

dirty ambient air can cause this too and its more likly than air through the lines. silicone or oils in the eye or on the part will cause fisheye.

[mcshooter]

i just got a eastwod gun that requires 4 cfm at 29lbs and it worked great. only cost $219

[DrGonzo]

I am currently finishing up painting my car. And I'm doing it outside...LOL!

I'm using a Harbour freight gun almost like the one that was linked to earlier. I'm also using a Husky 20 gallon air compressor. It flows at 7cfm so it is perfect for the HVLP gun I'm using. I have some minor orange peeling in spots but for the most part it spray good. I use a canopy with plastic wrapped when I am doing smaller parts. You can see what I'm doing in this thread:

http://www.3sgto.org/showthread.php?...ebuild-Restore