Maindrian Pace Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 A good friend of mine passed away about two years ago, and I inherited a lot of his model building supplies, including this spray booth that he made himself. It's big, about 5' tall on a 2x4 base. He had a huge cast aluminum and steel exhaust motor and fan on the back of the unit that stuck out about 2 feet, much too bulky to put the unit against the window in my model room. So I replaced it with a 4" 12 volt boat bilge fan, 240 CFM if I recall. Ebay purchase. This fan is ignition/explosion proof, very important when exhausting volatile fumes. How do you make a 4' fan draw through a 12.75" hole? With a plastic mixing bowl found at the 99c store. After looking for something all over creation, that is. The 4" flange and sleeve and the dryer duct were hardware store items. I bought a 7" wide pine board from Home Depot and cut it to fit the window, cut a 4" hole in it, painted it, and put the flange on. I sandwiched a piece of window screen between the flange and the board. On the outside, I used a dryer duct cover with a flapper door and a bird screen. I don't expect anything to get in the house through this window. I locked the window shut against the board with weather strip on all sides. It's really tight. I put a power strip on the side, and plugged in the LED light bar (Home Depot) and 12v power supply (deceased friend). I'm glad he had one, because these are getting hard to find, for some reason. Still have to mount that light, but it puts plenty of illumination through that diffuser that my friend thoughtfully added. Complete bowl, fan, and exhaust: Does the little bilge fan work? Does it ever. The only problem found is that the house A/C blows a lot of cold air outside through the duct, something which I thought would happen. The first fix was to replace the filter with a block off panel each time, though that was kind of a pain to do each time. The permanent fix was to install a 4" blast gate, an Amazon purchase that cost 6 bucks delivered and arrived in 1.5 days (!) Don't know how they do that. Last item is this switch for the air compressor. I got an entire model painted in less than a day, including all small parts. Model building just got a whole lot faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bucky Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 That's a nice setup! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fivesuns Posted August 13, 2019 Share Posted August 13, 2019 That is a serious paint booth! Wish I had room for something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOBLNG Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 Well done! Sorry about your friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1930fordpickup Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 Looks great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gasser59 Posted September 5, 2019 Share Posted September 5, 2019 (edited) Now that's what I'm talking about. Some really great ideas here Mike. Thanks for sharing. Edited September 5, 2019 by gasser59 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maindrian Pace Posted September 7, 2019 Author Share Posted September 7, 2019 Thanks a lot fellas. I've been a paintin' fool lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.