Home brew booth; size & lighting?

[Jeffw5555]

Hi all,

Like the new format! Anyway, just built a new house with an attached workshop. I want to build a downdraft booth, but naturally want don't want it any bigger than necessary, as it will limit the rest of my workshop space.

Anyway, it looks like I can fit a 13 1/2 foot wide by 19 ft long (interior dimension) booth. I may be able to squeeze another foot in the length, to 20 ft, but can't really go wider.

It will have a raised floor instead of pit, (about 6 inches) and a overhead filtered plenum in the ceiling fed by a large tubeaxial fan like commercial booths. The floor grate/plenum will feed to a large discharge plenum that leads to a chimney out the back of the workshop.

It will have only about 8 foot inside height, as my workshop height is only 10 foot, 6 inches hight, and I need the clearance for the raised floor and overhead ducting.

The interior walls will be smooth white plastic panels caulked & sealed. I was originally going to mount fluorescent panels in the walls behind glass, but this will reduce my available width by a foot.

So here's what I'm thinking of for light. Many commercial booths have angular panels where the walls meet the ceiling. I would mount a total of 8- 8foot long 2 tube fixtures in angled cavities behind glass panels. (4 per side, which means 2 of the 2 tube fixtures would by mounted side by side, and 2 long)

However, I am worried about lower panel light. To counter this, I would make small angled panels in the lower corners where the walls meet the floor. This would project light up at a 45 degree angle. I would mount half the number of lights to make the lower fixtures much smaller; a total of 4 of the 8 foot long fixtures, 2 per side. They would only stick out less than a foot from the wall on the floor, which shouldn't be a big issue, but I would have to watch out for dropping stuff on them.

Any thoughts as to this plan? Any feedback would be helpful.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Len]

It's been my experience that low lighting is good but I don't know about having it protruding from the walls near the floor. There are always hose being pulled around, jacks being rolled by, tools being dropped and a lot of foot traffic. If you do angle it out from the wall be sure to put a sturdy lens over the lamp so that it can take some abuse.

[Phil V]

I had a home made paint booth years ago that was 12 ft by 20 ft. If I opened the doors on both sides of a large vehcile they would hit the wall on each side. BUT it sure exhausted nice, just had a large window fan built right into the wall about waist high. That setup worked better than some commerical booths I painted in. The wall/roof junction was square so I mounted my 8ft fluorescents on the ceiling near the wall angles. The only thing I didn't like was lighting at each end lower was pretty bad, so I used a portable light for the front and the back. No fancy ducting, just lifted the rollup door about a foot and went to work spraying. On a windy day it would kick up some dust that would come through the door but most of the time it worked surprising well. Painting after dark in the summer time was a no-no, that paint booth seem to draw bugs like a magnet.

[Chris L]

Phil,what kind of paint booth set up do you have now?

[fixdent]

You will be able to get by with the 13 1/2 ft wide booth, a little tight. that is what the my width is. But the 19 ft length me be of a problem. I'm not sure my length, I'll measure it today.

I just have an old Binks Cross Draft. They are pretty inexpensive, you may want to look into one if you are going to get into any serious hobby work.

I checked my booth today.....27 ft.
You may at least want it 24 ft. Especially if you are going to be doing any completes, like a half ton truck. You may have difficulty painting the front and rear of vehicles.

--
Gordon

***Shareware Estimating Program*** (http://www.geocities.com/fixdent)

[Phil V]

ChrisL - At this point I'm semi-retired and no longer run a full scale commercial operation. I have a three car garage/shop where I work, not so much for the money but more along the lines of something to keep me busy. I'm good at what I do and I still enjoy autobody/paint work after 35 years full time. My spray booth consists of one end sectioned off with an exhaust fan made out of a large squirrel cage that exhausts upwards through the roof via an 8" pipe. the far end of that pipe has one of those wind driven type turbines that you see on roofs for venting attic space. Its kind of funny, when I turn the exhaust fan on that turbine on the roof spins like a top or a gyroscope. What I reallly like about that setup is that it spins out the exhaust fumes in a 360 deg radius and with just a light breeze that overspray/fumes will dissipate quickly. I'm friends with all my neighbors and I've asked them several times if they ever smell paint fumes and the all tell me they never smell any paint fumes. Common sense on my part also has a lot do with respecting my neighbors, I don't want to smell paint fumes and I won't subject my neigbors to smelling it either. Like I said, a little common sense goes a long way.