Monday, June 23, 2014

DIY portable spray booth

Good day fellow plamo builders! I recently assembled a new spray booth for my airbrushing activities, and I thought some of you might be interested in building one yourself. This simple, budget-friendly design is easy to set up and take down, and can hold all your airbrushing equipment for portability.



Here's what you will need:


Click the Read More link for the rest of this post...





Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures while I was actually building it, so I'll be using some poorly drawn diagrams instead.

1. Trace the round exhaust port on the back of the fan onto one of the longer sides of your plastic bin using a marker or a pencil. Cut along the traced circle using whatever tool/s you are comfortable with. You will be installing the fan on the inside. Make sure you leave some room for your LED lamp to go in front of the exhaust fan.


2. Install the fan from the inside using the screws that came with it, or use double sided tape to hold it in place. Seal any gaps with duct tape or packaging tape.



3. Make a reflector for the LED tube. This will shield your eyes from the light and will reflect more of it down into the box where it is needed. Cut two 3-inch wide strips of your plastic board. The strips should be at least as long as your LED tube. Attach some Aluminum foil on one side, then use tape to put the strips together. You'll need about a 90 degree angle between the strips.


4. If your LED tube doesn't come with a cord/plug, you need to connect one so you can plug it into a socket. I'll let you research on how to do this, but basically you need to get the LED tube to plug into a 220v outlet (or 110v, depending on where you live). Once your light [E] is ready, use double sided tape to attach it to one side of your reflector [D]. Add more double-sided tape to the back of the reflector, and mount it up in front of the fan. Attach 2 hooks to one side of the booth. These hooks will hold your airbrush - make sure hook [A] is slightly lower than hook [B], so the paint cup is almost horizontal with the bottom.


5. Attach the air duct to the exhaust port, put the other end out the window, and you're done!

I added a tray so any paint/thinner spills can be easily managed

Sets up and cleans up in a matter of minutes...



A few more tips before we conclude:

  • The size of the bin is totally up to you, but a bigger bin will need a bigger fan to work effectively. Go too big, and the fan will have trouble sucking out the paint particles...too small, and you'll have a hard time maneuvering a part mounted on a paint stick while airbrushing.
  • Use newspaper or recycled paper to line the inside of the bin for easy cleanup after a painting session.
  • Wear a mask. Working in a spray booth does not guarantee you won't get orange boogers.
That's all I have for today, now go and build yourself a paint booth!




19 comments:

  1. great tutorial! thanks for posting sir!

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    1. glad you enjoyed it sir! If you ever build one yourself do share it here for others to see.

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  2. How can you have a sponsored website and be taken seriously using
    botched together tools. It's like a dentist advertising on his website that he
    just makes do with a pair of pliars. Have lost respect for your work knowing
    your amateur approach. Next you'll tell you use blu-tack is to assemble your
    builds and paint them with nail varnish.


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    1. Oh my god you don't respect my work anymore I'm going to jump off a bridge!


      My advertisers understand the point of the blog, and clearly you do not. My "amateur approach" to get the results that I do is EXACTLY what I'm pitching here. Jeez it's this plamo-elitist mentality that really gets to me. Like a supercar driver loosing his shit because he got smoked by an asian dude in a souped up ricemobile. Maybe you're just pissed you didn't think of it yourself, or simply can't get the results you want despite your expensive gear.

      If I find a way to use blu-tack and nail varnish effectively, you'll be the first to know...oh wait, you posted anonymously. Quit hiding behind the internet, put your mecha where your mouth is and link back to your own work, and we can make this discussion a lot more interesting.

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    2. There's a reason why the blogsite is called "otaku on a budget" . Use a little common sense anonymous hater.

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    3. What a horribly ungrateful and ridiculous remark.

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  3. First of all, thank you for the great tutorial. I have got to try an assemble one myself. :D

    Anyway, may I know what is the size of the exhaust fan did you use for this? Is it a 4" fan? And your diagram for the LED tube and power code seems to be mixed up.

    Thanks in advance and keep up the good job. :D

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    1. Glad you like it, and thanks for pointing out the error, just fixed it! I used a 4 inch fan. I could have gone up to maybe 6 inches with the size of box I used, but I decided to reuse the fan from my old setup.

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  4. did you attach a power cord for the fan too? i didn't see how you do it :D

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    1. The fan I used already had a power cord, which I think is the standard for any exhaust fan meant for bathrooms and kitchens. I just have it running up and out the upper right hand corner (white cord) along with the one for the led light (black cord). You can see it in one of the images above :)

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  5. Nice job bro.. Thnx for sharing ur idea here.. Have been folo ur blog for a while..

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  6. Sir, just continue your work. You did great! Ignore the ungrateful elitist he even bother to comment just to make himself look stupid. God bless and more power! Stay positive!

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  7. Awesome work!!! Good job...more power...

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  8. I used the same materials and had good results. good job sir : )

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  9. one thing you should add though is to try and find a squirrel cage fan instead of the normal exhaust. one reason for that is the motor is on the path of the vapors, which has a very slim chance to ignite.I have read such a case in one of the scale modeling forum. one problem with a squirrel cage fan though is that it is very very hard to find one here in the philippines.

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  10. i really like your design and i going to do it later using your design.....but can i ask why there is no filter use for this design? is it because the fan suction power will become lowered?

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    1. Yes, the fan I have in this setup is a bit small(6 inches) so it does have trouble pulling air in if you want to add a filter material, but I plan on upgrading to a larger one (8-10 inches) so it can accommodate a filter.

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  11. Great job!!! This really gave me a lot of ideas on how to build my own booth. I'll share mine when im done building.

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    1. Glad you liked it sir, send me some pics of your completed booth at facebook.com/budgetotaku so we can share it with the rest of the community!

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