When I got done painting my clouds with the rattle can, I had a paint cloud in the room. I put a fan in the window to help exhaust it, but still ended up with a white paint dust everywhere.
Short of a portable paint booth I see on Ebay for about $75, what do you guys use while spraying your models ( be it engine/car/building )?
Too cold here in Michigan to take it outside.
I just put some cardboard up around what i am spraying to help contain it. Call it my own portable spray booth (cheaper too!)
I use a cardboard box, and I also do it outside - so basically I do not paint in winter. I know, not much help.
–Randy
I also use a cardboard box and spray outside. In the winter, I’ll wait for a warmish day and spray in the garage.
Luckly, I have a shop up stairs from the layout room and I paint there.
If it is too cold - I fire up the gas stove and warm up the room - then shut off the heater so I don’t blow up the place and shoot the item and then let it sit.
If it is quite large - I will have the fan going after I am done to move the fumes out of the shop and into the garage!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
I also either shoot in the garage, carefully and sparingly, because I donn’t want that same dust all over the truck, etc or outdoors on the patio.
Unless it’s really cold, so long as the paint and model are warm, painting them outside will work.
Of course, you said you were painting clouds, so maybe this could NOT be moved outdoors unless the backdrop was portable. In cases like this, running a strong exhaust fan near where you’re working solves much of the problem. Using some of those cheap plastic drop cloths will to cover things is good if there will be extended painting in the room.
Funny you should ask…
I just now climbed down off my layout where I made some track modifications and after wiring the feeders, filling the joiner gaps with ties I decided it’s now-or-never to paint the ties and rail. Can’t take it outside. Don’t want to wait 'til May.
Mainly, I’m using primer here, which is a high-solids paint so the dust gets on any horizontal surface. What I came up with was to take my cheap 20" box fan and tape a cheap 20" furnace filter to the back of it and turn it on to low.
It doesn’t eliminate everything but it sure helps and just like anyone who has worn a dust mask for any length of time knows, it collects a LOT of paint solids on it.
It won’t help for the VOCs and don’t get the vapor so thick that the pilot light on the furnace causes an explosion [:-^] but it sure does keep the dusting down.
Now, the other thing I do may not be approved by the manufacturer, but my laundry room is in the layout area. IF the vapor part of the smell gets too bad I set the dryer to NO HEAT and let it run for a while. Hey, it’s almost like an exhaust fan BUT I wouldn’t trust this if you are shooting a lot of volital stuff. Do a little at a time, don’t hesitate to open a window.
I was using the blue fiber filters I had on hand, the pleated ones might work better but may restrict too much air and cause the fan motor to overheat. Experiment.
When I was done there sure was a lot of gunk in the filter and a little less on the layout.
YMMV [*-)] Ed
Jim:
A spray booth is a good investment, but it obviously wouldn’t have solved your problem when spraying clouds on your back drop. As others have said, you needed to exhaust the overspray out of the room.
My suggestion for the future would be to invest in an airbrush and a compressor, and a spray booth too. An air brush puts much less overspray into the air. You don’t need to spend a fortune to get a decent setup. You can build a spray booth yourself. There are several threads on the forum with hosts of valuable information. If you are planning on using solvent based paints then there are a few issues like brushless fan motors or fans that keep the motor outside of the air flow, but if you stick to acrylics then the biggest challenge is proper ventilation.
Dave
I mostly paint with brushes. I painted my clouds with a brush and I mixed in a little gray on the undersides. When I want to spray (generally Dull Coat over a weathered model to bind the weathering to the surface) I have a carboard box with a turntable in it I set the model on. I spay on the paint, remove the model and close the box conatining all the overspray. I do this whenever I need to, Summer, Fall, Winter; or, Spring. Since I am not dependant upon the NEED to spray, I use this method on the rare occasions when I decide I want to.
I generally don’t spray paint in the winter here in Minnesota. Whenever possible I use Tamiya spray cans, their nozzle is much finer than typical ‘rattle can’ spray paint, and yields a result comparable to a decent airbrush. I paint in the attached garage. With the big double-garage door facing east) and the small door to the backyard (facing west) both open, I get enough air through to clear the fumes out pretty quickly, but I’m still blocked from the wind.
That avoids the problem with painting outside in the open - if there’s any breeze at all, a huge amount of paint seems to get blown away and wasted. You need to be “inside” enough to block the wind.
For the kind of painting the OP is talking about, in addition to ventilation and wearing a respirator of the sort intended for the paints in question, as well as wearing old clothes and covering nearby surfaces with old newspapers, it should be possible to hang cheap plastic drop clothes from the ceiling (especially a nice suspended ceiling if you have one) to at least contain the particulate matter that as he says, hangs in the air after repeated sprayings.
My wife does something similar when she gets her various wood working tools going to control to some extent the spread of sawdust in the basement. The drop cloths hang like shower curtains and create a sort of contained room all their own.
For more localized use of rattle cans (or airbrushes for that matter) on the layout away from my spray booth, such as weathering rail/ties/ballast, I made a sort of portable booth (but not vented or filtered so really not a paint booth at all but solely to control overspray and particulate matter) out of a jumbo sized kitty litter container.
Dave Nelson
When I was living in an apartment, because of work, I came up with a temporary solution (so I didn’t damage the apartment so I could recover the security deposit).
I made a spray booth out of a cardboard box by cutting off the top and bottom (it looks like a rectangular tube) and made some ‘wings’ to help direct and contain the overspray. This box would fit tightly into a partially opened window (use cardboard to fill in any big gaps around the ‘booth’). Also, when not in use, I could fold it down (ok, really, I mashed it down, but it still worked fine) for storage.
To get the fumes and paint dust flowing the right way (out of the apartment), first close all windows/doors. Next, open the one window where the ‘booth’ will sit and make sure any big gaps are blocked (no need to tape it off or make it absolutely airtight). In another room, open another window and put a box fan in it so it blows air INTO the apartment. When the fan is turned on, and with only two windows opened (one for air coming in and one for the air to go out), the fresh air is blown into the apartment and it eventually vents out the ‘booth’ window. If another window is open, or if there are big gaps around the ‘booth’, the airflow will be reduced, but not eliminated, so get it as air tight as is practical for your application.
It works anytime of the year, but in winter, it makes the apartment pretty cold, so I sprayed until it gets cold inside, then I’d close up everything and wait for the place to heat back up (a couple hours) and continue spraying. Spray during the warmest time of the day (in winter) if possible. While this effectively got the airborne paint particles out of the apartment, in cold weather, when the windows were closed (to reheat or when I was done spraying), the smell of paint as it dried didn’t have anywhere to go. Use water based paint when possible (but I did spray some Floquil without too muc
I use a large cardboard box and connext it to my dust collector (woodworking). In front of the hose connection I place a small sheet of filter material (left over from a pond we used to have),but a furnace filter may work as well.
I use water base paint, not nastier solvents, so all I need to control is the overspray, not fumes.
My comment about spraying the clouds, was a fact after doing so. The coulds are finished ( for now ).
Spraying outside isnt an option I want to do. I guess I’m going to have to do some research on air brushing and a portable paint booth.
If you have a paint cloud in the room, then you are trying to spray too much at one time. Spray a little at a time, try one cloud at a time and let it rest for a few. I sprayed over 180 feet of track with a rattle can and never had a cloud.
I’m with NP2626 on that. I once did a clinic at a meet for round robin group of model railroaders that I hang out with. I use craft acrylics to paint clouds on backdrops. In adition to gray, I use small amounts of purple, yellow and even orange sometimes. White is, of course the main color. Although these are not very good pictures, it gives an idea as to how they came out.
I even paint the blue sky with water-based interior house paint, brushed on.
Those are great clouds. This is where I get lost - I can spray on some white and make plain old non-detailed puffs, but combining those colors to get the highlights and details, not me. Purple, a dark purple, I can see using, but it would never occur to me to use yellow and orange in clouds.
–Randy