Thinking about a new booth and wondered what type of booth?

B

Brad J.

Oldtimer
I've been thinking about buying another booth and use my homemade one for sanding,blasting, and primer. I've researched the heck out of it when I built my own. My current setup has a heated floor which allows me to heat the surface temp of the car to anytemp I want. (anything over 90 degrees surface temp causes some solvent gremlins I think). Any booth I install will have the same setup so an airmakeup isn't required nor can I afford to run one. Being in Michigan were it is cold I also have a radiator in the shop wall that I heat the incoming air into the building. It doesn't make hot air but turns cold air into room temp air. I've been looking at either the crossflow, reverse flow, semi-downdraft and full downdraft. My setup is a semi-downdraft and it works pretty good but the insurance co doesn't like it since it's homemade. Basically I have to install explosion lights and some drywall or something fire retardent and new booth doors. I have most of the stuff gathered from ebay purchases but a new one would be easier I think.

I've never spent anytime painting in a modern facility or anybooth for that matter. Local body shop has a Devilbiss cross flow but their paint is full of crap. Could be prep, booth prep, or anything as you guys know. Or it could be the booth design? My best paint came form a 24' by 24' garage with a small insufficient fan slowly removing overspray. Health hazard though.

All things being equal will a crossflow do as clean of a job a non pressurized down draft or semidown draft? I know they are the cheapest and work best with my 10' ceiling height. The downdraft is more work as I have to make and maintain a pit in the floor. Makes sense that downdraft is the best as the air is pulled straight down vs. dragging across the car. I clean as much as possible before a paint job including the vehicle and floor.

Or, since I have 10 new explosion lights with a new set of tri-fold doors, and new dayton 24' tubeaxial fan setup do I make my own that is 16' wide by 30' long and cross my fingers that my insurance will OK another homemade booth without an ETL listing?

Looking for experience on the quality of paint coming out of different booths. Can a crossflow put out excellent results with say maybe a couple nibs in a panel or is that asking to much? I always rub everything but I think the less nibs the less chance for a colored nib that will always be burried in the clear.

Can a non pressurized booth ever do as good of a job as a non pressurized? I know a guy that bought a new americure pressurized reverse cross flow but said he has to rub everything also. Not looking to get rid of sanding/rubbing as I'm a restorer and not a collision shop. I know I can make a pressurized system if I need to as I heat with hot water and can make a radiator/fan setup with VFD's to make a slight positive pressure.

I have a tendency to overthink every move when it comes to these situations and if you guys have any opinions then I'd love to here them. Thanks, Brad
 
i've thought about it but then i'm an old cheap bastard. i need to rebuild my doors and add some more filters to slow it down some. i just cant justify the cost of a new booth at this point . take too long for it to pay for it's self . i've worked in some really clean booths but have worked in some that were no better than my home built one. a prefilter area does more good than anything. i built one that had double doors on it. the first doors had filters so the second had very little to catch. worked really good.
 
My current setup has two sets of filters built as a semi-downdraft. I used a roll up door like on a storage building. It doesn't seal very good around the edges so I have to mask around the door before I do any big jobs. That is why I bought the bifold doors from global refinishing but I haven't had time to install them. I spotted a quarter last weekend on a pink 58' T-bird and everything came out great except a couple small black specs in the clear and one small fuzzy. I had everything clean and my shoot suit tacked off between coats. I was using a new LPH80 with PPS cups that I bought for the job so the gun was clean. I use the devilbiss whirl filters at the gun but these light colors drive me crazy. Dark colors aren't a problem as the blems dissapear. I don't think a new booth would help this at all as the VFD will let me slow down the air speed to a crawl and stuff can still happen. I replace the air hose every year with devilbiss ones but the difference between old and new never seems to matter. My air system goes from the tank to a large coalescing filter, 40lbs desicant dryer, zeks particulate filter, into the booth with a devilbiss 100dollar cheapie regulater/filter setup. Air is clean. A new booth won't make me anymore money, it would open up some space as I'm thinking a nice washrack in front of the new booth. I have to play musical cars to squeeze in a job like this T-bird but it's a great customer that I take care of. The cost of new booths are down a lot compared to the estimates I had 5 years ago, the economy surely has something to do with that. Decent time to buy. It's dumb because I have the good parts for a nice booth that would be bigger than standard ones. Just having insurance problems. How do you get around it? Whenever they hear homemade they want don't want to work with me.
 
Back when I was an insurance adjuster I traveled around the country of North Carolina to different body shops. I saw shops that had "state of the art" paint booths and ones that had slmost none. One shop I went to was working out of an old barn. The body work was done in the section with a dirt floor. The paint work was done in the "paint room", which was simply a room with a gravel floor. The walls of that room were no different from the walls of the other section. You could see thru the gaps between the boards. That particular shop did work that was comparable or even better than the shops with the top of the line equipment.

Where I work now, we have top of the line booths. The painters won't wear shoot suits, and have even been seen smoking in the booths. Until recently the painters didn't have to worry about buffing anything. The guy that runs the detail shop sanded and buffed anything that needed it. Because of that, the painters didn't concern themselves too much with making sure everything was clean. They would walk around the shop and then go right into the booth and spray one, without even a thought of it. There is usually plenty of trash on the paint jobs there.

Basically what I am saying is that it really doesn't matter the equipment you have, it's how you use it.

Aaron
 
Right now I have cross my finger insurance. I do make sure customer cars have their own policies. I'm just looking at booths that are inexpensive to operate like a crossdraft or semi-downdraft. I had a 1 million btu air makeup unit that came with some stuff I bought. I gave it to the local body shop since I knew I'd never spend the money to operate it. It would be nice to make a nice wide booth with plenty of room to spray a 50's car all in pieces. That helps Aaron. I was taught by a 75 year old guy that sprayed laquer forever and was forced into modern paints. I just don't have the experience with booths to know what they are capable of. Obviously the booth guys make all kinds of promises. I'd hate to waste 8-10 grand on something that doesn't work any better than my setup or something I can build. An old car friend of mine has a large body shop with 4 pressurized downdrafts that he built and never had any insurance problems at all. I need to look into this insurance thing some more.
 
If you were to clean your booth, put a hood flat on a stand, and base clear it, how clean would it be? A few trash spots or a bunch? it's my understanding that with clean filters the dirt never passes through them. This means the trash is either on the part, on floor/walls kicked up by the fan, on the sprayer, or in the air system. If this is true then it makes sense that crossflow would do as good as a non pressurized downdraft. After talking with the local shop with the devilbiss cross draft I can't really make any conclusions on his booth. Filters always look dirty as well as the floor. Their paint looks terrible with a lot of trash spots but he said they gave up on total cleanliness and nib/rub everything. He said he would clean the booth and change the filters and it never really affects the outcome much so he doesn't waste the time keeping it spotless. I like the looks of a booth with bi-folds and glass windows. It just looks proffesional to me. Kinda how a muscle car looks in a pro-tour stance vs. a 70's stinkbug stance. T-bird left my boot this morning so maybe I'll stick a hood in there and bomb some clear to gather some information. Thanks, Brad
 
I was in one of those $100k downdraft booths and as you are spraying you can literally watch the over spray being sucked straight to the filters in the floor. It was so efficient that you could have two panels about 3 feet apart and spray one without any danger of over spray reaching the other. Actually saw a guy spraying clear without a mask on - I know not smart - but there was no cloud at all.
 
Even in a 100k booth, if its not clean, part is not clean, gun is not clean, you are not clean, you arent going to get a clean job. My downdraft gets a good pressure washing and simple green before every all over. Filters changed. Will get a good rinising between full cleaning overhauls. My jobs have zero trash, if there is it is from me and only a spec of lint or so. You'll get the occasional piece of sand blown out from somewhere that has just been waiting to escape on your last coat of clear, when it was blasted 6 months ago and made 10000 rounds of rotations on the rotiss.

If my shop wasn't already equipped with a downdraft, i would definately invest in one of those crossflow, or side-downdraft booths that are around $10k (i believe). You just gotta ask yourself, does the work that you do warrant you having a quality manufactured booth. Can you afford to invest that type of money. Friend of mine paints in a high quality crossflow. Does $100+ k concours restos, his jobs are squeeky clean. Inside of the booth is CLEAN. Outisde the booth is CLEAN. It sits in the right corner of the bodyshop. If you decide with the crossflow, dont go for the cheap one. Get the good one that has latches on both top and bottom of the bi-fold doors. Equip it with as many lights as possible...the bare minimum they send isn't enough.
 
I agree that cleanliness is the key. I have been reading that the side-downdraft booths actually produce a larger "safe zone" for painting since they pull the over spray, dust, etc. away from the parts toward the outside of the booth rather than towards the center floor area of the booth. Are you familiar with this concept?
 
Yes, and they aren't much more. But... They are about 3' wider with the ducting on the side and I don't have a ton of extra space for one. I do know that the standard 10 lights aren't enough. That is what mine is copied from and it needs more light down the sides. I was figuring on powdercoating, extra lights, and installing a vfd on whatever I get. I still look around all the time for used but the right deal hasn't came around. Since I have the new fan,new doors, 10 new inside access lights that is a really good start on a new booth. These are upgrades I purchased for my old one which would make a great booth once done but it can only be 12' 8" wide. It just isn't wide enough, it's 24' long and I was going to extend it to 30' or more but It is still narrow. Hard to do a modern job and open and shut the doors while painting. All kinds of decisions to make and this helps me get an idea of what a booth is capable of.
 
dont feel bad. my downdraft is right at 13' wide inside and i paint the mopars completely assembled. is a pain and can't get the doors fully open. have to get inside the rear of the front fenderwells and paint the jabs with the doors shut. Only way to do them all together. Projects like the mustang, i hung the doors up on a rack behind the car. I wish mine was about 2' wider. maybe when we hit the lottery we'll get ourselves one of those $100k downdraft direct fire air-makeup units! lol!
 
when i build a booth ... i build a booth texas style.......... :)

this was 2500 sq ft . booth 2.jpg

booth 3.jpg
 
I am the auto body program director at Baker College in Flint, Mi. I am looking to replace one of my booths. I have been leaning twards Garmat, who has one? Any recomondation?
 
Thats a big booth Shine. Does it come with the cowboy hat or is that extra? What kind of filter setup/exhaust do you have? Hey Dant, I know of a place called Hummel's body shop in Nashville Mi that has a Garmat. That is all I know. I can say nobody knows how to spend other people's money like a school or government. Must be something in the water. LOL.
 
cowboy hats are mandatory . there was a 48 inch turban exhaust on the roof. the filter wall in the pic was the out take. the doors were around the corner and had filters in them. during the week it would have 2 rows of vans in it. back then i used dust stop on the floor. only way to tie down the carpet lint coming off them.
 
dant;4988 said:
I am the auto body program director at Baker College in Flint, Mi. I am looking to replace one of my booths. I have been leaning twards Garmat, who has one? Any recomondation?
Click to expand...

There is a guy on another forum I visit that just recently stated he has used a number of high dollar booths in his career and favored the Garmat the best. I can't provide you with firsthand confirmation of this since I have not used one myself. Is the college looking to donate their old booth??? If so PM me. :)
 
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