Hi Group,

I (think ) I have completed my DIY paint booth inside my shop and was wanting to test it for air movement. What I'm wanting to know is if anyone else has done this and what results were you getting or looking for.





Sorry, I tried turning them twice in photoshop and they still are on there side?

TX
Mr fixit_PDX
Chris

You should be getting air movement, generally throughout the booth with no dead spots, of 0.5m/second. Call that 19".

I never bothered with smoke, just put some thinners in a gun and sprayed it around in different places and at different heights. You can watch what you've sprayed being sucked towards the outlet(s) and pretty quickly make a judgement on whether it's moving at the standard or not. Also allows you to add or change inlets so that you can deal with dead spots or change flow direction, well, to some extent. Also a good idea to do the exercise both with a car in the booth as well as empty since the air flows will be quite different.

NFT5,

Thank you for the response. I will do the test with the solvent as you suggest, that way I have an understanding of what and where it is going. I Like the idea of a test run with the car just to see how it goes, also to understand how I will do the actual paint.

TX
Mr fixit_PDX
Chris

You should may sure your using non sparking fan motors, ( fully enclosed). and ground the fan housing. I see your man door is up wind, you should have at least a switch to turn the fan off inside. if you need to go outside for some reason and the fan is running and you open that door your going to suck what ever is outside inside all over your paint job. another thing to think about would be a table down at the end where the fans are to put things you may need while spraying. spare gloves, tac rag, masking tape, a rag and some reducer, and so on. a friend of mine has a booth that he pressurizes, ( runs the fans blowing into the booth) it works good letting him exit the booth with out sucking dirt in the door and any place that might leek will blow out not in.
Jay D.

Hi Jay (badsix),

I appreciate the comments. I actually have a bigger supply than return fan, so I do pressurize the booth just a little, at least the walls move out not in.. Yes the fans I have are belt driven external to the air stream. The filters to the right of the man door are the supply air and what you can't see is on the floor at the opposite end I have a bank of filters that exhaust, so the air moves diagonally across the booth.
These pictures are before I changed things some more. The vertical stack of filters in the middle are just additional intake air from the shop without fans.
So I actually do have positive pressure and that is why I want to test to see if the center filters should be removed or not if I'm positive pressure, I sure don't want to push fumes into the shop, that is what I'm trying to avoid.

Great Idea on the table, I do have a small roll-around cart that has my supplies when I'm sanding, so I'll get it ready to use for paint too. This is my first attempt at this, so I'm taking it slow to make sure I get it as safe as I can. After reading here and other places I have gotten a positive pressure air supply system for breathing, the separate compressor type with the full face mask.

So I'm getting closer to priming the body work that I've done and then sand for a filler coat, then on to a SS paint for the final job. I'm doing British white, so hopefully it will be a forgiving colour for a first time, daily driver, learn as I go project. I have 4 more of these in different models and years in the "Q" to restore when retirement gets here, which is just a couple of years away.

TX
Mr fixit_PDX
Chris

sounds like you have a good idea of what your doing.
Jay D.