Make
Your Own
Paint Booth
BY MARK FORSS R F R S
WHEN I ADDED MY home shop—a 20-foot by
24-foot addition that’s heated, lighted, and air-conditioned—to my garage, I considered how I
would paint small parts for my various projects.
Up to that point, my “paint booth” was an old
lawn chair frame set outside in the backyard.
While that works, it’s subject to weather,
insects, flying grass, and the harsh realities of
Wisconsin winters. Painting indoors quickly fills
the garage and shop with paint fumes and paint
dust. Looking at the commercial offerings for
small indoor paint booths convinced me that I
did not want to spend the $500 to $1,500 or
more to purchase one off the shelf. Using some
scrap material and a blower, I constructed a
paint booth inside my shop for about $150 and a
weekend’s worth of effort.
Starting with materials on hand, I constructed
the cabinet of the booth using 2-inch by 4-inch
lumber and 2-foot by 4-foot by 1/2-inch plywood
sheets. (While I made my booth from wood components, it could easily be made of sheet metal or
other materials.) Basically, the booth is a cabinet
with four two-by-fours as posts and three shelves: a
bottom shelf about a foot off the floor used for
holding an air compressor and supplies, a middle
shelf for the actual spray booth cabinet, and a top
shelf to finish off the top of the booth and act as a
storage area. The booth area is enclosed on the
sides and bottom to make a containment area. I
installed an angled sheet in the top rear of the cabinet to mount the blower and a furnace filter and set
the booth to a comfortable working height so I
would not have to stoop over to paint.
The booth’s 115-volt exhaust system is a small
HVAC blower, purchased from www.Grainger.com,
with a flow of about 273 cubic feet per minute. The
choice was based on the most cubic feet per minute for the money—no special calculations on that.
I did make sure the design was such that the motor
of the blower is outside of the airflow path to minimize any sort of fire hazard. This is important, as
you don’t want any arcing from the motor to ignite
the paint dust or fumes. The blower is attached to
the angled rear wall with a few bolts. I made a
transition piece from the square output flange of
the blower to the circular exhaust ductwork with
fiberglass cloth and resin. The blower exhausts
through common 3- or 4-inch air duct through the
wall and outside with a dryer-style wall vent. I
chose metal rather than plastic duct to reduce any
fire hazard. An inexpensive furnace filter is
installed in a wooden frame in front of the intake
of the blower, serving to collect paint dust and
minimize any sort of debris buildup in the blower.
