Homemade Spray Booth

[ChrisA Edwards]

I'm in the process of making Plantation Shutters for about 11 windows in my house.

I have all the frames made and 245 louvers cut.

(Louvers stacked and sorted by window)


Now it's time to paint them.

When I lived in Dallas, I made a paint booth, 8'L x 7'W x 6'H, fully enclosed on all sides with extractor fans and filters. I painted the bodywork for my Ducati motorcycle and for a friends Suzuki. When done I tore down the paint booth and threw it away.

This was the frame



This was it enclosed.



Now, in my home in TN, I'm getting ready to spray the louvers, I'll put a coat of primer on all of them before spraying a white semi gloss that matches the trim of my house,

I'm using an Apollo Power-5 HVLP spray unit. This'll be the first time using this out. When I sprayed my motorcycle parts I used conventional compressed air.

I've decided, on this spray booth, that I primarily just want to catch and filter the overspray of which I hope there is not too much, so I am leaving one wall completely open and exhausting the air through two sets of filters on the rear. If I get dust and other foreign objects on the louvers while spraying the primer, I'll enclose the open side and install a door.

I'll be turning the heat pump on in my garage, setting it to around 68F.






Hard to really see in this picture, but I have a dummy frame that will hold about 15 louvers hanging on a french cleat.



I'm not sure at this point whether I will spray or brush paint the frames, that really depends on how easy the spraying goes.

[ChrisA Edwards]

The photos are cross linked from PhotoBucket. I checked this site from a couple of other devices and IP's, all seemed good. Sorry..

[Dan Friedrichs]

That's really cool, Chris! So you're not filtering the intake air?

[ChrisA Edwards]

When you say the intake air, the air supplied by the HVLP unit, to spray, is filtered by the unit.

I'm hoping the air in my garage stays relatively clean with it being cold weather outside (no bugs) and me not really moving any air in my garage with any kind of machines running, I will have my heat pump running, but that's on the back garage wall on the exhaust side of my spray booth.

I figure I'm going to be spraying for about 15-25 days, doing 10-15 louvers at a time. I will wait for each set to dry before moving them.

If I notice particles on the louvers, I may wall in the open side and put filters for intake air, just to try and keep a dust free zone in my spray booth.

I was super cautious when I sprayed my bike as this was the first time doing anything like this and I managed to keep all traces of foreign objects off the finish. I did have inline filters on the air from my compressor.

The paint for my bike, which was automotive, was much finer and delivered at around 23-25psi.

I'll be spraying the louvers with a water based primer followed by an oil based semi gloss, which I'm hoping will require much less thinning than the base coats and clear coat used for my bike.