Quickie Paint Booth Ideas...

Build a skeleton out of strapping or 2x3's or whatever cheap lumber you can get. The PVC idea is nice, and will last a long time, but it's more pricey than cull lumber and you can't staple the plastic to it easily. Cover your wooden frame with plastic. Put furnace filters in one end, and an old box fan exhausting out the other end.

 

Used the plastic on several occasions and the inexpensive box fans w/ac filter taped to it, let garage door down and set on top of fans w/carboard box between them.

 

would use the cheapest (dutch) wood you can find. staple the plastic to it. add an exhaust fan. spend $$$$ and get best breathing filter you can buy (heath is not cheap). use quality paint/painting supplies.

 

I would go with a 3/4" pvc frame. A hand full of tee's and 90's and you could have yourself a nice frame for under $10-$15.

 

I'm no expert on painting, but it seems to me I've read it's safer to use the fan to blow into your both rather than suck air out. That way the air coming in contact with the fan doesn't contain the fumes (seems I've heard they can be quite volitile).

 

Actually, you might consider a fan blowing in and a fan blowing out. Remember, the best respirator in the world can't make oxygen for you if there's nothing but fumes in the booth with you. (Unless you go with a hood system...but you still want a supply of fresh air coming in regardless.) You DO have a respirator, right?
I used this method because if I hadn't, the air being forced in would've forced the fumes and overspray out somewhere, and I wanted to control that somewhat. The outgoing fan did the trick. Oh yeah, air conditioning filters on both. Dust in=bad, overspray on drive way=bad.

And Howard already pointed this out, but I used all PVC for my booth frame. Make 2 rectangles, one for the "roof" and one for the "floor", and join them with 6 "posts". (Oh Yeah, make sure the project is already inside the area before you join the one end of the "floor". Don't ask.. ) You may have to bungee cord a corner or two to keep it secured if you don't care to glue the parts together. I made some short tubing sections, about 1.5" long, cut a chunk out of the tubing longitudally so that the piece would "snap fit" over the "posts" and "roof" rails. Made about 40 of those, and it sure made the booth easy to disassemble later.

The reason I used the PVC was to allow me to take the booth apart and reassemble later. I simply couldn't keep it (the booth that is...) up during the entire painting process. If the space you're using will be untampered the whole time, I could see a 2x4 frame being more sturdy and easy to replace the plastic. The plastic will attract a lot of dust and overspray by virtue of static cling, so changing it is a good idea to keep all the extra crap out of your final coats.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

 

Your problem now is the outdoor temp, but in the warmer months I have gotten some good paint jobs spraying outside at day break before the wind and bugs get up.

I would opt for a cheap framework tent with poly. However if you did buy the canopy you linked you could use if for other events later. (Like Tellico type trips)

 

Mike, if you end up using only one fan, put it forcing air into your booth rather than drawing air in. You can filter the air coming into the booth if you have control of where it comes from - ie. filters on the intake side of a fan blowing into the spray booth. The idea is to maintain a slight positive pressure. If you run a vacuum, air and dust and trash and bugs, etc, etc, etc, can be drawn in at any opening in the plastic, especially at the floor. Also place your air intake as high as possible and your exhaust as low as possible on opposite sides of the chamber. This gives a cross-draft with a little bit of down-draft.

 

Actually, it's Thad, Bill is the Jeep!

Yes, I used a thinwall PVC, so cutting a section out of it to make a "C" will slip right over the plastic and the framework. Make lots of them. A bandsaw makes easy work out of this.

 

the medium pop up garage is on sale at Harborfreight for 159.99 (in my state)
here is a pic of it
it is fully inclosed too!
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=42211

good luck

 

it could double as a frame sand blasting room as well.

 

No I just remember doing my frame about 4 years ago.
and man it was a big mess.

 

yeah did you get my reply?

anyway, I have next sat. free so we can plan on getting those t-cases back together.


later
mike

 

I like the sounds of the PVC frame vs the canopy. You can pick your own dimensions, so you're not stuck with 2' of work area along the sides.