Should I spray my car in my garage?, Pro's I need your opinions Options

[jmill]

Here's one I did in the garage. Notice the yellow overspray everywhere. Came out fantastic IMHO.

[whatabout1]

My neighbor sprays a couple cars a yr. He blows out his garage with compressed air.
Then goes back with a leaf blower. Tapes plastic to the walls and floor. Not so much
to control dust but to keep overspray off.
He has a couple fans with cheapo furnace filters to get the air moving in one direction.

Then waits for zero wind outside and sprays. Wind blows crap around.
He hates wind when he has to spray. The day after rain is the cleanest air.
He gets some great results. But then he has been painting for 30 yrs !!!

[Borderline]

I set up a system with plastic lining each side of the car and a cross flow air system. I bought a high volume fan and used to to blow air into the shop and out the door at the far end. The fan draws air in through a filter and pressurizes the shop to help keep crap out. The door at the far end was just opened slightly to keep the air velocity up and stuff from coming in.

My issues were operator/temperature related. The people at the paint store told me that "paint loves heat". Well, my garage is on the cool side (60* F) and the paint didn't want to flow out. so I put on an extra thick final coat and had what they call 'solvent pop". The solvent in the paint needs to evaporate before the next coat is applied. If the paint is applied too thick the solvent at the bottom starts to evaporated and creates a bubble as it expands and bursts out through the paint surface leaving a crater. Not a whole lotta fun sanding out. Use multiple thin coats and try to keep the temp up so the solvents evaporate quickly and the paint can flow out nicely. I spent hours color sanding to get the car looking OK. I was hoping for better.

Don't forget to use a good respirator. FWIW

[jmill]

You need to match the reducer to the temperature your spraying in. Most companies make low, mid and high temp reducers. Humidity makes blushing a concern. A guy like Scotty or Rick could tell you more.

[arkitect]

Andrew,
I've painted alot of cars many years ago in my garage. Spraying down with water helps to keep the dust down and works. One other thing that I didn't see mentioned which may seem obvious is to be careful with your air hose. It will start dragging in the wet floor and now you have a dirty and wet air hose that can brush on your fresh new paint.

All I'm saying is be careful and keep in mind where the hose is when your draging it around the garage. I used to either wipe it down with a rag or put it over my shoulder.

Good luck.

Dave

[Krank]

Another old trick is to drop a chain or cable from the car body to the damp floor (yes a wet floor), to keep down the static build up.

[clow]

Here is my dad doing some priming for my car.

We opened the garage door about a foot for the exhaust fan, hung some tarps. Came out nice.



We used a space heater to heat the tarped in area. It was -20C, notice the winter hat.

One thing my dad pointed out and as I noticed too wearing a painting mask is to be careful for condensation dripping from the mask! It might have been said already though.

m

A real painters mask might not do this though.

Good luck!

Clow

[saigon71]

An old guy I know who did a lot of garage paint jobs with excellent results would put a layer of newspaper down on the floor and THEN wet it, just prior to painting. This reduced the chance of kicking up any water. Clean up was simple, just scrape up the newspaper with a snow shovel and toss it. Good luck with your paint job!

[Andyrew]

Great info all! Its all really helpful to me!

Keep it comin!