What are people using when they airbrush a large model? - such as a 1/350 Enterprise or a 1/48 scale B-1B?
I presently am using a “spray box” (card board, no filter or blower. I can barely fit a 1/48 B-17 in it. I want to build a real spray booth and am debating how large to go ( I do like large models). But may also do some 1/72 Scale fighters or armor.
I have toyed with the idea of having a removable center partition and using 2 blowers.
Any comments about using LED rope lights? I’ve seen a lot of florescent lights used - (daylight, warm white or what?) My models are typical displayed under florescent room lights. How much difference would the ‘color’ tone of the white light make?
If you’ve built your own spray booth, what would you do differently?
Thanks
Actually a very good question. Anything in 1/32 is gonna be pretty big. My booth is 2fx4ft plenty for most of the thngs I do. As far as lighting , I swear by incandescent . As far as florescent goes I hate it.it’s just not natural light
I have a small portable one but I can add two of them together I believe, if I ever have the room for that. I’d say go as big as you can with the room available, a spray booth for a big kit will take a small one not the other way round naturally. On the lights I wouldn’t use LED’s not for the fact that the light would be a problem but as they last so long and paint will affect them long before they burn out, how about halogen spot lights, easy cheap and should last a long time too. On the blowers use as many as you can, you cant have too much ventilation in there.
Phil
I certainly have done models that are too large for my spray booth. I bite the bullet, but old newspapers on a table and the floor around it. I may stick a blower in the shop window and open the window. Not the ideal solution, but it works.
The Mobius Seaview has been the only model to large to fit in my spray booth.
I had to wait two months for a windless (rare in my part of the country), moderately warm day to spray her in a closed garage. Lots of newsprint and an auto painting respirator mask borrowed from a friend.
Build one 24" tall x 24" deep x 48" long. Or bigger if you want. Use two blowers. Don’t worry about a partition, unless you really want one, just turn one blower on if that’s all you need at the time and work in that side of the booth. Of course that means individual switches for the blowers. Use another for your lighting. Put doors on it so when you’re finished painting you can leave what you just painted inside to dry/cure and you can close the doors when you aren’t using the booth to keep it clean. Small fluorescent lights, such as under counter lights, are inexpensive, small and can be daisy chained together. Only problem is the availability of different types of bulbs. I just go with the standard bulbs. You can put them in the corners and across the top front and rear. You’ll have plenty of light and few shadows. They aren’t open fixtures, their self contained with covers over the bulbs. Don’t use halogens, they put off a lot of heat. Use two 24x24 furnace filters in the rear. Sacrifice a couple inches at the rear of the booth so the filters aren’t directly against the rear wall. That way your blowers can draw through most of the filter rather than just whatever size hole you put in the rear wall. Use a couple of strips of wood top and bottom in the booth to drop your filters in. Make the front bottom strip removable to make it easy to change filters. Build it out of heavy plywood and paint it white. At least on the inside. When the inside gets dirty from overspray, repaint it. Don’t worry about lining it with tac paper, shelf paper or newspaper.
My booth is homemade. I gave a friend the dimensions and he put it together out of scraps he already had. He had the tools and enjoyed woodworking. I didn’t. It’s 18x18x18 inside. I was primarily an automotive modeler at the time. The top is a piece of Lexan. There’s a little trap door on top to insert/remove the filter. I have fluorescent lights in the front corners and across the top. It has a door. I believe the blower is 275cfm and the booth is usually less than a foot from a window. It draws very well. I simply ran dryer hose to a dryer outlet mounted in a piece of heavy cardboard the width of the current window I’m using. Open the window, insert cardboard, close window. I rent and move from time to time so I haven’t bothered to do anything other than that. I’ve been using this booth for 10 - 11 years now.
Yes, it’s constructed from flammable materials and I keep small bottles of different thinners and cleaners inside of it. I haven’t had a problem. It would be nice to build one from sheet aluminum but it would rattle, hum, vibrate more. You could have problems with static electricity and it would have to be(should be) grounded.
Tony
Do like I did build a bigger booth mine is 32’’ wide by 23’’ deep I did this when I built Revell’s catalena in 1/48 3years ago, best thing I did for myself. ACESES5 [2cnts] [bgr]
Wingman_kz
Thanks for the detailed reply, some really good ideas and since space is not (yet) a problem I’d like to build a large booth.
My 5 kids are out on there own and I’ll be retiring in about six years so I’m 'building out" facilities for retirement. In addition to models I’m into vintage audio equipment and home brew beer). Maybe I should start thread about what facilities, equipment people would like to have. Of course I’ve started building a ‘stash’ - it’s small only about 25 kits at present.