Painting in the garage ?'s

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Chase77

Chase77

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Cincinnati, OH
Well im all set up to paint outside this weekend and wadda ya know......... supposed to rain all weekend and next week. :doh: So i figured that I'd clean out and repaint the garage to create a suitable painting area that is as "dust free" as my driveway would of been after I soaked the hell out of my lawn. Would this be a good option or am I goin to be left with a ton of wet sanding as compared to painting outside? Being my first attempt at paint work Im not exactly expecting a show room :princess: finish but dont want to end up with a ton more work cause I did it indoors.
 
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I would mist the floor of the garage with water. Keeps the dust down.
 
It might not be a good idea to paint when there is 100% humidity... you might want to check with the paint manufacturer.
 
Put up plastic sheeting to make walls/ceiling and try to make a makeshift spray booth. Get a couple of box fans with filters (like furnace filters on them) set up to move air through. It is best to push the air in. Other option is to use fans as exhaust and have a filter set up to filter all the air coming into your "booth". Problem with using fans for exhaust is that you don't control where the air enters from, so it can suck dust in.

I would think a garage would be 100% better than a driveway. You'll be sanding out bugs forever if you do it outside/unprotected IMHO.

Misting the floor will help keep dust down.
 
Soul_Man said:
Put up plastic sheeting to make walls/ceiling and try to make a makeshift spray booth. Get a couple of box fans with filters (like furnace filters on them) set up to move air through. It is best to push the air in. Other option is to use fans as exhaust and have a filter set up to filter all the air coming into your "booth". Problem with using fans for exhaust is that you don't control where the air enters from, so it can suck dust in.

I would think a garage would be 100% better than a driveway. You'll be sanding out bugs forever if you do it outside/unprotected IMHO.

Misting the floor will help keep dust down.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

3M makes cool masking curtain that comes on a roll that you can use with your masking gun. Comes in a 100 ft roll 8 or 10 feet wide. Makes a disposable spray booth.
 
Nothing but good advice so far. The only thing I might add is...DON'T PAINT AT NIGHT.
I did and painted a lot of gnats etc into the paint. If you want something that is spotable, sandable and polishable, use acrylic enamel, catalized. It is very forgiving for the garage painter. I used DuPont's Nason brand in premix British Racing Green. Very close to one of the cruiser colors and a color I like. Ditto for the white on the top and bezel. F'ups can be sanded, polished, etc. Wetting the floor also keeps you from having a floor the color of your cruiser. Unless you like a lot of schtuff to match. I garage my '40, but if you don't have that option, you might want to clearcoat it.
Also spend the $ for a good quality 3M respirator, as catalized paint is very hard on your gills.
GL
Ed
 
Chase,
Good luck! Gimme a ring or shoot me an email if you need some assitance....or at least someone to stand around and drink beer. Glad to hear you are at the painting stage!

Jason M.
 
One note on the respirator: most modern paints use isocyanates. Respirators will NOT filter them out and they can be really, really bad. You really should use a fresh air system if you use iso's. If you have really good airflow in the booth you'd probably be OK with a respirator, but officially you should use fresh air (which is expensive, not sure if you can rent them). If you use a regular respirator make sure it fits really well and make sure you have good airflow.

Outflow fans technically can cause an explosion. I think a lot of people use regular fans without problems. I did my jet ski using two regular box fans on the outlet side of the booth with no problems, but it theoretically could cause an explosion.
 
Sounds good

Thanks for all the input on this. From what Ive gathered here and talkin to a guy who used to do body work, it sounds like Im goin to head indoors and poly up an area to spray in unless we have a stint of perfect weather. He told me he thinks there are brands of paint that are Isocyante (spelling?) free but he's obviously breathed in a few fumes :D so he could be wrong. I'll find out on Tues when everything opens back up.


Jason - Pm'd ya.
 
All good advice. I just painted my 40 in my garage, and i've done several other vehicles as well. The one thing nobody mentioned was the type of gun. Without a regular downdraft style booth, overspray is a huge factor. An hvlp gun goes a long way helping out. A syphon feed old school style gun makes lots of overspray, and even with a few good box fans it can get so foggy you can't see what you're painting. I painted mine in pieces this time around, so it wasn't a problem for me , but you may want to consider a good hvlp if you're doing it all in one shot. After painting with a buddies hvlp a few weeks ago I can't believe I haven't bought one yet.
 
Using a respirator, you need to be sure it fits. If you have a beard, you should use an air line fed hood. I'm sure rental shops rent respirator pumps. Don't use "shop air" as it may have contaminants (oils, teflon from rings) you also don't want to breath.

When I was spraying at work (nasty stuff in the airplane industry) I wore a full suit with airline feed. Breathing air came from an air purifier panel, spraying air came from the shop feed.

I painted cars in a garage when younger. Dampen the floor as said, make booth as said. I used acrylic enamel with catylized hardener. Don't use too much, one job had too much and the paint cracked/crazed as it dried!
 
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Don't know how much experience you have with painting. Here's a good website with a forum. That's where I'm getting most of my information. I'm in the tear-down phase of a frame up restoration on my '78 FJ-40, so haven't started painting that yet. I do have some experience from my jet-ski paint job.

They also have videos that are pretty good for basics of painting. There is a lot of stuff that needs to be done in terms of surface preparation and technique to get a good result, depending on what kind of result you are looking for.

The main site, with links for the videos:
http://www.paintucation.com/

The forum is:
http://b15.ezboard.com/bpaintucation
 
Where do you guys get your paint? I can't find any leads in the local yellowpages. I haven't tried going to a local auto body shop yet...
 
What do weathermen really do???

Cant exactly figure out what a weatherman really does for a living. :flipoff2: The s***ty weather never came and now the forecast changed to beautiful till tuesday. So I spent yesterday finishing up the prep work and the better part of today sprayin on rust bullet. Turned out pretty good for my first painting experience. :D
 
supplied air vs APR

I know that OSHA has required supplied air for isocyanate paints, but recently there was a paper that discussed that you could use combonation HEPA/Organic filters in an air-purifying respirator as long as you changed them out regularly (that's the reader's digest condensed version). Check http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/isocyanates/mdi/mdi.html if you've had respirator training. I guess inhaling the particles of isos is worse than the volatile fumes.
But if you aren't familiar with respirator stuff, it's a damn bit cheaper to spend a bill or two renting a supplied air system than to go on disability from a pair of bad lungs.
This stuff can be dynamite, as any auto painter will tell you. Even painting outside, because the overspray can still get you.
HVLP guns are safer because they have less overspray and saves paint (which is big$$$ nowadays)
Harbor Freight has a HVLP gun that I read about on a body shop forum that got pretty high ratings for a hobby gun #43430 - about $40 on sale - I'm going to give it a try when my bodywork is ready, but check out this guy's site- he has some good paint and bodywork hints:
http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/techinfo/tech--body-paint-tips1.html
also this one:
http://www.goldcar.com/cgi-bin/yabbg/YaBB.pl?board=AutoBodyForum
Good luck!
 
HVLP systems discussion

Because.... I just have to know......... and was momentarily confused......

The only HVLP system I've ever used was a home-made DIY system. It was a "turbine" model. This "conversion" type system (discussed above) that uses a shop air compressor is new to me. I did some searching and found this discussion of the merits of the two systems. It's from the wooden boat forum, and was very informative.......
http://tech-geeks.org/tiny.php?url=1120

Our local Experimental Aircraft Association chapter is building an aircraft. When we started the project, a few years ago, one of the first jobs was assembly of the wing spars. They needed to be painted, ASAP, before anything else could be done. Knowing that that was just the tip of the iceberg, we opted to build our own HVLP system... and it worked better than anyone expected. The plans were printed in some hobbyist magazine... long forgotten and dated may of 1994. I have retained a copy for possible future use. The one expensive part in the whole turbine HVLP project was an $82.50 Ametek 115757-P turbine (available from WW Grainger... it used to be $36)
http://tech-geeks.org/tiny.php?url=1121

The rest of the parts are: a fitting for the hose, an on/off switch, a shop-vac type of pleated paper filter, and some few scraps of rubber/and plastic. The box is just and ol' glued 'n' screwed cube made of plywood. A $2 handle on top is a kinda' nice feature.

As I said before, the plywood boxed DIY turbine system has been passed around and used for some time by chapter members for their own projects. Depending on your notion of "true" vs. "conversion HVLP, it may have certain advantages over the "conversion" systems. One of the big advantages is that it's a heck of a lot cheaper than a "good" compressor... and will run for hours without having to wait for a compressor to re-charge. It's also not much bigger than a bread box.


If anyone REALLY SERIOUSLY wants the plans... which are 4 old faded (and kinda' hard to read in places) pages, I could copy and mail them. It's nothing but a sealed box to hold the motor.... take in air through the filter.... and with the turbine, push it out the pipe fittings to the hose. He used vinyl (with helical fiber reinforcement) garden hose. No rocket science involved! Of course, you will have to have a true, non-"conversion" HVLP gun..... not a "conversion" gun.

John Sherwood '79 FJ-40
Charlotte, NC TLCA Upstate Cruisers
 
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