Painting cabin

[Little Jo]

An airbrush system is a very nice thing, as you can create really regular painted surfaces. Nevertheless you always have problems in your environment/room with the mist of paint. In former times, I use to do my airbrushings in the kitchen (outside it was most times to windy or to cold or something else I could use for excuse ). The clean-up time in those days was even longer than the graphic arts itself. So now after we've moved to a new domicil, I was able to setup in a corner of my workshop a small self-made painting cabin, which has proven very useful, so I want to share it here with you as a "customizing technique" in wider sense.

I think the construction is not that difficult and easy to understand from the photos.The wooden beams are fixed to the floor and ceiling with some metal angle fittings (?). The cabin itself is made from thick transparent tarpaulin (?) use in the construction area which is fixed with double-sided tape to the beams. The cabin has an opening thru which you can place the objects to be airbrushed inside and thru which you are "shooting" the paint -- so the mist remains (nearly) completely inside the cabin (note, during the painting process I'm residing outside the cabin  ). For illumination I have also fixed a small halogen spot on the inside right above the opening. For maintenance there is also a small door fixed with two hinges and a magnet closing.
Inside I placed a flower stand and on top of it I fixed a small eating tray which can be rotated (from IKEA  ) -- Placing you object on this you can rotate it easily without touching it.
The floor of the cabin is covered with a fleece like sheet used by professional painters. The small "tray" fixed on top of the door is very useful to place items on it, cleaning the painting gun ... or to prop up your forearms during a painting session

[Psyche]

What a clever design Jochen!  Now I need more room though! 

We call those "food trays" you can turn "Lazy Susans" here (I've no idea why) and they are very convenient for a lot of art projects. I also use one with small "scooped out areas" (orginally for dips, relish, etc.)  for sorting vairous ephemera when doing book art (stamps, coins, fibers etc. in different "bowls" built into the tray.) This would also work for small Playmo Parts. You can get an inexpensive lazy susan at yard sales, on ebay, etc...if you don't have a local Ikea. Tupperware makes some very useful designs.

[playmofire]

That's a clever and very useful system, Jochen.  No more waiting until the weather's warm enough to spray pain in the garge.  No more working in the cold!  Excellent.

"metal angle fittings" is the term, but for "thick transparent tarpaulin" we'd say "heavy duty polythene".

[Tim_w]

Hello  Little Jo 

This is an excellent addition to your workshop  . I don't have my own spay booth but i still feel it is an essential peice of equipment. At the moment i use my aerosol sprays outside. One of the problems is that using them is dictated by the weather. Making a spray booth like this would really solve my problems. I am sure it would be easy to add an extractor fan to remove the fumes given off the type of paints i use.
All in all an excellent peice of work and very inspirational 

Kindest Regards  Tim 

[Little Jo]

Thank you for the encouraging comments.

I am sure it would be easy to add an extractor fan to remove the fumes given off the type of paints i use.

Yes, I also have thought about this. But the problem is: where should I lead the fumes from the fan to? Making a hole into the ceiling leading the paint mist into the living room, isn't a good option  .... and directing it out of the cabin into the workshop as well a not that suitable solution.  The window is at the oposite of the room, so I would have to lead a tube across the whole room, what I really do not want to do. Another problem would be that than each time I have to open the Window and somehow fix the tube to the frame, not to mention that the window is placed in a basemen shaft which means that the paint mist would come back into the room. So all in all I'm a little bit helpless with the fan option, although I think this would be really an improvement to the painting cabin/booth, because after a while doing quite a lot of spraying and airbrushing the cabin is full of mist.
(Maybe there is an idea with extracting the mist via a fan into a deadend tube where there is a kind of filter or absorbing mechanism at the end so that I have not to lead it anywhere at all.)