I've been painting for close to 5 years now and still can't figure out what makes a job come out more clean or dirty. It seems like the more I try the more dirt I get in my paint and often times when I don't go out of my way to keep everything clean I end up with less dirt. I'm still learning everyday but I don't have many problems with anything but this.

I wear a shoot jacket when I paint, use new strainers every time something goes in the gun, have a filter at the compressor, wall, and at my gun, and tack after sealer and final coat of base, often water down the floor and spray the intake filters a bit (might have helped a little), and blow the car off like crazy before it goes into the booth

Anything im missing? All the painters I previously worked under either didn't care about dirt because Someone else had to cut and buff it or it was a show car and got cut down work 1000 grit anyway. If I could get my jobs to come out cleaner it would save me a lot of polish time as a 1 man operation.

Often when you clean the booth just before spraying you put dust and dirt into the air.
Some of it floats around for a while and then ends up in the wet clear coat.

I find that if I turn the booth fans on and leave them running while I clean and it eliminates a lot of this.

Also I blow off any dust on my person after suited up standing right in front of the exhaust end of the booth.

I have not tried this but some say attaching a ground wire to the parts you are paint helps as well.

^^^ above and what I do is I clean my booth and close it up. like to wet sand my final primer coat then wash with soap and water. then I spend time to rinse completely all seams door jambs, then I rinse the underside as much as I can get to. then I go around and blow the water were ever it collects then into the booth. its usually dry the next day for masking. after you tack the car tack anything you think might have dust on it like your hose, even the gun. dose your suit cover your head do you wear gloves ? there are lots and lots of little things that together can make a big difference.
Jay D.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:Often when you clean the booth just before spraying you put dust and dirt into the air.
Some of it floats around for a while and then ends up in the wet clear coat.

I find that if I turn the booth fans on and leave them running while I clean and it eliminates a lot of this.

Also I blow off any dust on my person after suited up standing right in front of the exhaust end of the booth.

I have not tried this but some say attaching a ground wire to the parts you are paint helps as well.

I don't ever clean the booth before spraying usually just water the floors. I'll try blowing myself off right before though, I also need to get a full suit since right now all I use is the jacket not pants. I figure any dirt that would fall on the panel would be from my upper body though that's why I never ran the pants

badsix wrote:^^^ above and what I do is I clean my booth and close it up. like to wet sand my final primer coat then wash with soap and water. then I spend time to rinse completely all seams door jambs, then I rinse the underside as much as I can get to. then I go around and blow the water were ever it collects then into the booth. its usually dry the next day for masking. after you tack the car tack anything you think might have dust on it like your hose, even the gun. dose your suit cover your head do you wear gloves ? there are lots and lots of little things that together can make a big difference.
Jay D.

Wet sanding is too messy to me so I usually dry sand everything. My suit has a hood and I usually wear gloves. I'll try tacking the hose since I've never tried that

Dry sanding is too much of a chore for me. Puts tons of dust everywhere throughout the shop.
Sandpaper lasts longer when wet sanding or so it seems.

badsix wrote:^^^ above and what I do is I clean my booth and close it up. like to wet sand my final primer coat then wash with soap and water. then I spend time to rinse completely all seams door jambs, then I rinse the underside as much as I can get to. then I go around and blow the water were ever it collects then into the booth. its usually dry the next day for masking. after you tack the car tack anything you think might have dust on it like your hose, even the gun. dose your suit cover your head do you wear gloves ? there are lots and lots of little things that together can make a big difference.
Jay D.

This. ^^^^

Washing the car before painting is, IMHO, one of the most important things. I don't have the luxury of allowing the car to dry overnight since i need to get 3-4 jobs/day through the booth (unheated). Most goes out off the gun with only a few needing denibbing and, even then, not much.

Another factor is having your gun really clean. I have a couple of dedicated clearcoat guns and they both can get a buildup in dead spots in the internal passages or bottom of the pot that doesn't clean with just rinsing/flushing. If this breaks away you'll get a dump of crap straight into your job.

How much air are you moving out of the booth? I noticed an improvement when I upgraded my exhaust fans, and starting at the point closest to the air intake and ending at the point closest to the exhaust fan in the cross draft that most of us use.

I work at a pharmaceutical company, and I used to work in their clean rooms. Now I design the machines that go into the clean rooms. Although overkill to compare a clean room to a paint booth, it has shown me what "clean" really can be. Ever have the sunlight shine thru your window, be it in your shop or living room, and see all the particles floating in the air, if you've not, check it out sometime. You'll be amazed. Those can all land on your primered or freshly painted surface, unless you eliminate them.

So you have a booth with airflow...any disturbance in the airflow will create turbulence in your air stream and potentially could cause particles to be stirred up. I know we still need to move around in our booths to paint, but just keep in mind, any actions you make, opening/closing doors, leaning over the car, draggin a hose around...all creates turbulence that stirs particulates and dust, and leaning over ur surface, with ur body or arm full of dust particles, can fall off yourself and land on ur surface. Clean floors, walls, ceiling, nooks, crannys, even the duct work that brings in and out your air for the booth. Wipe it, then wipe it again, and again. Basically, how clean you wipe down ur surface you are painting, needs to be done to the surfaces in your booth. Now, we really just need to worry about the large ones, that the naked eye can see, but if you think to the extreme, then you'll get the ones you can see with ur eyes, and some of the ones you can't as well.
Try the dusters that look like a mop, but don't use the hell outta it cuz it too can leave a big mess. Use it once or twice and toss it. Try sticky rollers across the walls and floors. Best if you will blow yourself and your suit off, do it outside the booth, could even go so far as to have dedicated shoes for painting, and laydown a sticky mat at your walk in door to your booth to catch the gunk off the bottoms of your shoes. Use lint rollers over your suit before you go in the booth. Google cleanroom suit...you'll get the picture. Even could wear a hairnet and a beard cover if you wanted. Keep stuff like paper, cardboard, wood out of the booth, those things are particulate nightmares. Also, keep good clean filters on your incoming air, who really knows how much dirt we are actually blowing into our booths or how much dirt those filters are really letting thru.

Blowing compressed air really stirs stuff up. But, think of it like this. If you blow air at a pile of dust, big mess of dust in the air, if you blow air at a really clean floor...no mess in the air. I know we must blow air, but I just wanted to make the point of blowing air in a clean environment is way better than a dirty one.

I'd love to bring a car into one of the clean rooms at the place I work, it's the cleanest room I know. Uses HEPA filters, which is probably out of most of our price ranges, it's outta mine anyway.

Wanna see how your air really flows? Get one of those fog machines that the kids use for Halloween, their pretty cheap, and throw it in front of ur fan that brings air into your booth. Have a car in the booth if you want to see how the air moves around the car, in the corners and what not. Can learn a whole lot, and make some alterations if you want to improve the consistency of the flow.

I know I've went on a rant to the extreme side of clean rooms, but I guess it's the business I'm in. Best of luck to you. Maybe you can use at least one of my crazy tips from above to help your situation.

NFT5 wrote:

badsix wrote:^^^ above and what I do is I clean my booth and close it up. like to wet sand my final primer coat then wash with soap and water. then I spend time to rinse completely all seams door jambs, then I rinse the underside as much as I can get to. then I go around and blow the water were ever it collects then into the booth. its usually dry the next day for masking. after you tack the car tack anything you think might have dust on it like your hose, even the gun. dose your suit cover your head do you wear gloves ? there are lots and lots of little things that together can make a big difference.
Jay D.

This. ^^^^

Washing the car before painting is, IMHO, one of the most important things. I don't have the luxury of allowing the car to dry overnight since i need to get 3-4 jobs/day through the booth (unheated). Most goes out off the gun with only a few needing denibbing and, even then, not much.

Another factor is having your gun really clean. I have a couple of dedicated clearcoat guns and they both can get a buildup in dead spots in the internal passages or bottom of the pot that doesn't clean with just rinsing/flushing. If this breaks away you'll get a dump of crap straight into your job.

I'll try washing the cars. I worked at Abra for a year or so and that was the only place where the jobs ever came out well straight from the gun and they washed everything car right when it came into the shop. I keep my guns pretty clean and always wipe my cup out and try to keep any chunks out of the neck in the bottom but i Have caught myself shooting chunks before when the clear starts to run low in the cup.