Garage Paint Booth?

With all the restorations the forum members have accomplished, let me ask how everyone deals with painting the finished product. I originally thought I could build a paint booth in the garage using PVC pipe, some sheet plastic, box fans and some furnace filters. After looking at various web sites, I wonder if it is really feasible, or is one better off doing a lot of the prep work, but letting a professional shoot the paint. From what I can learn, some of today's paints will kill you quick, and I live on a city lot and don't need the cops enforcing some code compliance issue. So, what have others done in their restoration projects? Am I OK if I use certain paints? Mine is a 110 Defender mod, and I have no idea of what kind of paint the camo scheme is, but I'd like to maintain it. Thanks for any input.
Geoff

Most of those MOD paintjobs are done with a brush. As for building a garage booth, yes it's easy enough. My buddy and I painted our trucks in his barn with a booth just like you described and I need to finish my truck by painting the tub in my own garage soon. If you want shiny perfect clear coated paint then I would hire the actual spraying to a pro. If like me you want it all one color with a tough single stage paint job, a garage booth is perfectly feasible. Just get a good respirator.

Yup, a home built booth works fine. I'd suggest wetting the floor down to keep the dust to a minimum (and the water also collects the overspray and makes cleaning the floor easier. Avoid putting an electric fan in the wall of it to use as a direct vent. The open electric motor and paint fumes may not agree. Instead, mount the fan outside the booth and create some duct work to siphon the fumes out. Or you could do it like me, wait until May fly season is over and do it in your driveway!

Thanks guys, I'm pretty good with a wrench, but painting is going to be a first time experience. From what little I know, a single stage paint will be fine, but I'm not too sure what kind of paint the mod used. Someone called it "IR" paint, and mentioned it's deadly to breath when sanding so I've bought a good respirator, but it raises the question as to is it "Safe" to paint that myself. I'm certainly not after a perfect finish, it's a landrover after all! You can defiantly tell some parts are painted by brush, and that's fine. I just want to "Clean up" areas like the hood hinges appear to have corrosion, as do the door hinges, and I might have dripped a bit of brake fluid on the wing that took off a bit of paint. Just seems like if I pull a fender off, it'd be nice to repaint while I've got it off.

I did something similar to what Kevin did. I used lots of plastic sheeting to turn 2 of my 3 garage bays into paint booths. Cover the floor as well - you will be glad you did. I direct vented through a box fan, which wasn't the best idea, but it worked. I always placed the vent fan in the adjacent booth so that the fumes would be more diluted by the time they got to the fan. A better set-up would be to pressurize the booth with a fan so that the fan is only moving clean air.

If you don't have a spray gun, you may want to conside using a self-contained HVLP system. I used a Campbell-Hausfeld HVLP system to spray my military flat paint and it worked great. Not too much overspray and very easy to use. This is what I used:
http://www.gleempaint.com/ch-hv1001-hvlp-system.html

For paint, check out Gillespie Coatings available form Rapco Parts. Supposedly, Gillespie Coatings are used by the US military for vehicles not requiring a true CARC (chemical agent resistant coating) paint.

Booth for painting the rear tub:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...4/000_1663.jpg

Here is the booth set-up I used for painting my chassis components. The fan moved enough air that I didn't need a back wall. I just kept the back door of the garage open a little and it set up a nice low velocity air flow.
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...4/100_2271.jpg

pop up shade unit, some plastic sheeting and a good resporator
http://www.roversnorth.com/forums/at...2&d=1244906209

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scott

pop up shade unit, some plastic sheeting and a good resporator
http://www.roversnorth.com/forums/at...2&d=1244906209

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All I have to say is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5DnqW3F57E

Sorry :D, after reading the "Rovers North Sliders Thread" I couldn't resist being a SMRTA$$. Have to give you +1 for using the pop up shade, never though of that:thumb-up:.

Cobbled this together in order to paint after galvanizing the chassis, it worked out better than I thought it would and was easily disassemble after a couple of days.
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l1...1/000_0117.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l1...1/000_0118.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l1...1/000_0121.jpg