Hello:
I am building my own home paint booth for air-brushing model trains. Does anyone have a good source for the exhaust fans?
Try Grainger Electric. They sell all kinds of stuff, including exhaust blowers. Their website is down at the present time (20:15 PST). Website: http://www.grainger.com/
Andre
I seen a fan at LOWES in the tool section for $99, it comes complete with a fan,
motor and housing. It is made as an dust collector fan for woodworking.
Its a little on the heavy side and I was debating if it was better to mount it behind the spraybooth or on the floor with a section of ducting. I’m building mine from the drawings in MR, jan 88, pg 128. I think it has somewhere around 325-350CFM.
I do a lot of painting and went to a salvage yard specializing in building materials and got a 1/4 horse squirrel cage fan that was originally part of a central heating system. I have sliding (horizontally) windows so I just built a stand for it that puts it at the window level. When I’m going to paint I slide the window open, open another one at the opposite end of the room and fire up the fan. I think I paid about $25 for it and it works like a champ.
I found a ton of airbrush info over at an other kalmbach forum:
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4969
I used a bathroom exhaust fan from Lowe’s. Worked great. In use I would place a paper towel over the grill and that kept the fan and motor clean. And, those are made to be quiet.
I too have used a bathroom exhaust fan for 20 years with no problem. Most if not all of these use brushless motors so there isn’t any sparking in the air flow. I’ve used Floquil paint for most of this time too.
My spray booth sits on a workbench in our utility room, and I vent the booth out a window next to the workbench. I cut a piece of plywood the same width of the open window and placed the exhaust duct in it, and connected it to the booth with a short piece of flexible ducting. To use, I place the plywood insert into the window and lower the window to the plywood. This way I did not need to make a hole in the wall for the exhaust.
I installed a furnace filter below the fan intake to capture some of the paint particles, and change it once or twice a year. It seems to be working as there usually is plenty of paint in the filter.
Bob Boudreau
My booth is on rollers so I can place it in the bathroom window in the basement. I like to stand as I paint, so the tabletop is about four feet off the floor. My fan is mounted in a plywood frame that fits in the window. When not in use, the fan/frame is remove from the window.
I use a Dayton from Grainger. It has a shaded pole (sparkless) motor, so can be directly in the airstream. Grainger sells an “explosion-proof” fan, but costs three or four times what the shaded pole job costs…insurance stuff, I guess.
When I bought it, the Dayton came without fan blades, so you had to buy blades at the same time. If you get the Dayton, be sure to buy metal fins, so the solvents don’t attack. I need to clean the fins with lacquer thinner on occasion to help the air flow.
I am well satisfied with the Dayton. If I was setting up a spray booth today, I’d do it the same.
A replacement fan for a cooking range smoke hood should also be a good choice, and not that expensive at a home supply place such as Home Depot or Lowe’s. Most of these fans have plastic blades and run much quiter outside the range hood than they do in one.
I built a paint booth out of an old range hood turned on its back.
I built my spray booth out of surplus pc boards and used a muffin fan for the exhaust. You can pick them up for about $5 each, surplus.
Bob Hayes