So i've been telling myself that i'll be spraying my car in a rented booth, however i've laid down primer at least 10 times so far in the past couple months, and I havent had a single bit of contaminate land in the paint..

I plan on installing a couple of roof fans in the garage for ventilation purposes (Going to do this anyways).

The garage is pretty clean and no frills, I would obviously give it a total cleaning prior to spraying and have a ventilation system (Maybe even lay plastic on the walls, but it would only take me 20 minutes to completely empty out the main garage area so maybe just wash down the walls with water?)

If I did it this way I could spray the body, spray the hoods, targa top, all the little pieces without rushing myself at all.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

The plus side is I wouldnt have to physically move the car to and from the paint booth. Not to mention saving money that could go to the new tires I desperately need..

Thanks!
Andrew

Mask off the garage in 2mil plastic. Make an intake air filter and exhaust fan. Dust will kill you. Settling on the paint after its sprayed. I've seen guys hose down the garage brfore painting. I even knew a guy that would paint in his garage nude to avoid dropping lint on his Mustang.

Water is bad idea... I think that advice comes from another era with different paints...

Best painter I know started out here, and still talks about how clean those jobs came out. Definitely wet the floors down, this guy still wets the floor in his paint booth. A booth can keep you safer if you paint every day. A booth can help the paint dry faster. But a booth (in my experience) isn't about a cleaner job. In fact some of the booths I've seen are horrendously dirty.

This thread is Just Fine without pictures.

Gives new meaning to 'blue balls'.

....Ya dig.....no pinto ding-a-ling for me LOL

Good advice all.

Mark, thanks for that bit of info. That gives me real confidence to do it in my garage.

Obviously the floor will be wet down, forgot to mention that.

Sounds like i'll be spraying in my garage

I'll start designing the ventalation system now

Any more real world experiences?

Thanks guys!

Andrew

I sprayed in my garage. My biggest worry was complaints on the smell. You end up color sanding the crap out of the paint.

Do it. This is $60 worth of materials sans the lighting, tarps and vent fan which I already had. When it was finished the plastic went to the trash and the 1x2's were stored for another day. The vent is a squirrel cage fan w/ AC filters. DO wet the floor. A paint booth is for containment and a controlled atmosphere.
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Probably goes without saying, but good lighting would be a necessity as well.

Your "booth" is about the same size as my garage

I think i'll just tarp it up a bit. I have a couple of ideas that should make this go well. I'll post them here when I complete them.

I painted my car in my garage, one of these easiest things I've done on a 914... I had never painted a car before, bought an HPLV gun, setup a separator system for the air and spent a lot of time on the prep work. I didn't tape ANYTHING up in my garage and did not have ANY issues with over spray. I cleaned the garage for hours before hand being sure to get rid of all dust, sprayed down the garage floor etc. I used a really good water based (people that have painted cars in the past will complain, but having never painted a car before and using this stuff first, I loved it, very easy to work with) color coat and finished with a few layers of clear. Really happy how it turned out. You can see some pics of the prep work and spraying in my progress thread:

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...c=87854&hl=

Dan

I paint parts in my open shop often. It comes out just as clean or cleaner than when I rent the spray booth from the body shop up front. I always wet the floor if I'm spraying body panels.
I sprayed adoman's car in his garage and he'd built a booth with clear plastic. It was horrible. I couldn't see the reflection in the fresh paint at all. I would recommend that you hang tarps on the stuff in the garage that you want to protect but don't try to build a booth, it will just make it worse. It's a lot easier to colorsand and polish a few nibs of dirt than it is to cut out runs like curtains or huge orange peel.
I've painted a few thousand cars.

Great advice! Keep it coming! It sounds like I shouldnt put any tarps out, Im just going to separate my tool area from my car area and clear out the car area.



Here is a picture of the separation. It has a doorway and a open area to the left which I will seal off. I will make the doorway into my fresh air inlet and turn the fan on low and seal around the fan.

Do you have any heaters in the garage? Anything with a spark or an open flame? If so, you want to check very very very very carefully to see if your choice of paint is flammable when sprayed or will out-gas flammable vapors.

--DD

I do have a heater, but it will be behind the wall that I will be tarping off. I will have the back door open so I dont think there will be any fumes that will get to the heater.

As long as you have your vent fan running, your vapors will not reach LEL (lower explosive limit) and you should be fine. You would need about 20% atomized paint vapor to explode. You would not be able to see in the room if there were 20% vapor in there. Normal atmosphere has about 21% oxygen, lower than 19% and you will feel light headed. Above 23% and you will feel high. Again, run the fan and you will be fine. Pick up some halogen lamps for extra light and heat.

Done it 100 times. HVLP gun helps keep the overspray way down. It will still get everywhere though. Most dries before it lands. Years later you'll still find some. If your garage is connected to your house you'll smell it inside. Be prepared to have the woman tell you just how much it stinks. I'd recommend hanging plastic. Get your garage as dust free as you can. Wet the floor. Fans help but make sure you don't pull crap in with the fan. Put a filter on the intake side.

Your biggest problem will be water in the compressed air. I built a cheap water separator. I took a 4" nipple 12" long and stuffed a towel (low lint) inside it. Install caps with fittings welded or threaded on. I welded mine. Dial down compressor pressure so you don't make a pipe bomb. Works great. I suppose you can use pressure rated plastic stuff.

Sure, why not.
Be SURE to wear PPE. Some of the stuff they sell nowdays is nasty.....both from breathing & exposure to the skin.
Here's my "adventure".

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-aut...-we-got-em.html

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

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 !!!

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

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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.

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

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.

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.
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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.

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A real painters mask might not do this though.

Good luck!

Clow

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!

Great info all! Its all really helpful to me!

Keep it comin!