Where do you airbrush? Post a picture of your setup.

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

I have been airbrushing outside, but with it starting to get cold and the days getting shorter I’m not going to be able to like I have been in the warmer months with longer days.

I have been tossing around the idea of getting a spray booth, but I don’t know if I have room for one. Where do most of you do your airbrushing? I’d like to see some good pictures of your workstations.

2

I have a work area set up in the garage. Most nights I open up the door, but it’s been cold here (well, cold for Texas) the past few nights, so the door’s been down.

Here’s the airbrush bench:

And the assembly/paint/decal bench:

3

A paint booth can be collapsible or permanent. As long as you have a means to vent the vapors away or filter them.

Here’s my modeling cave which is in the basement of my house. My paint booth is in the back left corner behind me. It vents out through a dryer vent.

!(http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t320/hawkeyes_bucket/The Hawk/jerryinshop.jpg)

!(http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t320/hawkeyes_bucket/Modeling Tools/sprayboothvent.jpg)

My friend lives in an upstairs apartment, he has his “paint booth” which consists of a fan that sits in a window.

In the winter months he removes the furnace filter and replaces it with a piece of foam board to keep out the cold. He also has insulation material packed around the unit and between the double hung windows to keep cold air from entering his work room. He’s been doing it this way for decades…I’ve known him for about two. He also is one of the long time reviewers for FSM.

Pick yourself up a cheap sandblasting cabinet at Harbor Freight. You can turn it into a paint booth easy enough by hooking up an exhaust fan to it (it even has vent provision in the rear of the cabinet).

!(http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t320/hawkeyes_bucket/Modeling Tools/boothnfanidea.jpg)

4

I just airbrush at my regular workbench. Compressor sits on stand next to bench. I get so little overspray I do not need a booth for airbrushing. I only use my booth for rattle cans- it is a homemade booth and has metal brackets on back so it can hang on pegboard hooks on the wall opposite my workbench.

5

Do you mainly use acrylics or enamels? I could see not having much overspray during airbrushing, but the clean up is my most messy part. I mostly use enamels and the thought of spraying lacquer thinner inside to clean out the airbrush is what scares me without a good paint booth.

6

I use enamels, but clean out airbrush with paint thinner/turpentine/mineral spirits, not laquer thinner. And, I made a “trap” out of a half pint jar with a plastic lid. I drilled a big hole (about 7/16) in cap, and glued on a two inch piece of plastic pipe (half inch pipe). On top of that, I mounted a 45 degree bend. I spray thinner during cleaning into the open end of that bend. One can buy such “cleaning stations”, but they are so easy to make.

7

I just use my workbench,it is in an unfinished side of the basement,there isn’t much overspray,for armor and planes it really doesn’t run that long.I do have a good respirator and open the window.It’s not like I get fogged out in a cloud of spray.