line the walls with plastic sheeting.. make sure it is at MINIMUM... 3 feet from the sides of anything you are painting... good idea to make sure your pilot light it out, because paint, when mixed with solvents(reducer) is flammable. also.. keep your floor wet with water, this will keep the paint from sticking to the floor, and keep the dust at a minimum, since dust is usually on the floor. keep a window open and a door open going outside, not into the house, this allows for air to flow through the area to vent the fumes. Using an electric box fan works awesome for helping fumes go out... i would suggest putting the fan at the bas of the garage door and have it pointing OUT of the garage. this allows the air to come in the window, further off the ground, less dust and dirt. etc... to come in the garage. when you are in there painting, there are a bunch of things to do and not to do... but the most important thing... when you are in an enclosed area, garage, tent, whatever you want to use... wear a respirator with HEPA filters and a suit... becuase you will get painted as well.. and if you do not wear a repsirator, your lungs will get painted as well.. if you need help with any of it scott, you have my number, i have been painting for 16 years.
Electrostic Spray Painting is used for Factory painting ... at least it is on Ford Tauruses as it was explained when Earl set us up with the plant tour last year. Electrically charged cars are sent through a room containg a cloud of charged paint. As the car passed through the paint cloud it is bonded to the car ...
When my dad was still working at Rayburn's, they used electrostatic paint on all of their tube chassis, because most of the paint ended up on the ground or in the air instead of on the tubes.
I really dont recomend this because of what I said above. Unless everything your painting is high above the floor, there's a good chance you will splash water on your intended target either by your feet walking around or the air hose being dragged around. Go outside on any given sunny day and look at the air. There is garbage floating and bugs flying at all altitudes, especially if you live anywhere near woods or fields. This is why it is better in my opinion, not to try move air in a garage. Not to mention all the dirt and dust that is already all over the garage. Moving air only stirs it up. The point about pilot flames is a very good one. Always turn off the furnance, hot water heater or any source of flame ofter found in garages.
Years ago, I worked for a small body shop that did prep and paint in the same garage. We would blow everything off with a leaf blower a day before painting. Would wipe the vehicle down outside once and then twice inside the booth. As for getting rid of overspray and to help the solvents to escape, we used a small fan near the floor run on low speed with a couple filters in place. Also used filters at doorway to help filter out debris. Water was used on the floor to help trap debris and overspray but it was just dampened not allowed to puddle. We never had much trouble with debris in the paint. We also would not leave the booth until final coat had flashed. The early morning was the time we sprayed as to minimize any dust from the previous day settling on the car. You can achieve a pretty good paint job in a garage, you just have to pay attention to detail. Always wear a paint approved respirator and extinguish any open flames.
I will need some more encouragement before I tackle painting my own car, especially in the garage. I may attempt primering panels, but doing something that will permanently show on the outside...I think I will trust that one job to someone with the right skills and equipment. I will be doing a "tent" of clear plastic in a portion of the garage, to paint fender, door, hood, etc. but not the entire car.
I agree, at my fathers body shop we sprayed the floor down then used a push broom to sweep almost all the water out the door. You just want a damp floor not wet. It wasn't to catch overspray but to keep the painter from stirring up dust while he walked around the car dragging the hose.
Also, electrostatic discharge was brought up as a method of painting. If, and when you set up your booth to paint the car, take a length of chain and loop it over the engine crossmember or anywhere you will get a good ground to the garage floor. It helps if the floor is a little damp to help conductivity of "electrical" flow. Paint coming out of a nozzle will conduct electricity just like CO2 coming out of a fire extinguisher. Anyone that has done time in the Navy can tell you about the fire extinguisher needing to be grounded during use.
I'm at work and don't have any pics here but this is what I did..... I bought 15 sticks of 3/4" E.M.T. conduit, bent one end of ten sticks in 90 deg., stood them up and cut off the bottoms to the heigth I needed, used the other 5 sticks to create the top of the bows held together by conduit couplings, got some old 2X4s and drilled holes in them to hold the conduit upright, bought a roll of 5 mil plastic at wal-mart and draped over the the bows. At one end I built a door and a frame to hold it with space for 4 filters, at the other end I built a frame to hold 3 box fans side by side and I run 2 20X20" filters in front of each fan. This is in my house garage and to this day I have no over spray outside the "Red Neck Spraybooth". One bad piont, at this time to move a car in and out I have to untape the plastic at the fan end to open it up, not very user freindly, Painting bikes is much easier. Anyways, I filter in and out, I have to change filters after every painting but it is worth, filters are cheap. I probably have $50 in the whole thing and I've painted 3 bikes one Mav and an S-10. I'll try to post a pic if you're interested. Also, I don't recommend painting in the fog (Dennis) the paints of these days can enter your skin and through your eyes, and please as already stated wear a respirator or you could end up like Dennis.
