Garage Booth Setup

Booth Setup

First check to see if you are allowed to paint in your area, some residential areas do not allow for painting. So, first of all we must be legal, some of these ideas do not meet OSHA standards, but for personal and occasional use, they work pretty good. Since most of us do not have access to a $100,000 paint booth, here are a few things that you need to think about when setting up your shop or garage.

You must think about air movement and limiting dust.

I recommend that you hang plastic sheeting from floor to ceiling on both sides of the car leading up to your doors and windows. Some will build a box frame of wood and plastic. If you buy automotive plastic sheeting, it has a treated side that will attract dust and overspray to it. Make sure that you have room for your lighting and fans. This will limit the amount of dust both coming from other parts of the garage and not adding paint overspray to the other areas of your garage. Hint: If you staple a 1X 2 board to the bottom of the plastic, it will not move on you very much during spraying and help control air flow.

Then you need to create clean airflow through your booth.

Air movement is one of the most important this to remember. If you are not moving any air, you will not be pulling any solvents out of you paint. This produces many BAD PAINT PROBLEMS. So, I lift up my garage door and use 2 closet shelving wire racks which will hold my furnace filters in place. I then seal up the garage door on both top and sides. This in normally my intake into the garage (depending on which direction the wind is blowing). I then take my garage service door (or window), open it, insert my exit fans ( box fans seem to work pretty good for this, but they will get full of paint, so don’t use the wives’ good ones.) pointing out and seal the rest of the door with more furnace filters, plastic and/or duct tape. You will want to mount your fans on the floor if possible. All your solvents from spraying are heavier than air and will sink toward the floor. They will be easier to take out if your airflow is lower. This should also provide better air flow and keep out most dust and bugs. You will need to replace your plastic and filters with every paint job. Paint that is dried onto the plastic may blow off on the next paint job and end up in your paint.

Hint: If you spray early in the morning, there will not be as many bugs, you will not be in the heat of the day and normally the wind will be down.

Good lighting is very important on all sides, front, back, top and bottom of the car.

That way you can see if your paint is laying out uniformly and you can tell if you missed any spots. Make sure the lighting does not get in the way when pulling your air hoses around.

Hint: Have a friend help during painting, mixing paint, pulling hoses, and looking for even coats of paint (Don't forget a spray mask for your friend).

Ceiling fluorescents with a couple of shop work lights work pretty good.