Friday, December 2, 2016

The Work Table Spray Booth Is Completed!

I am happy to report that I completed work on the table spray booth project this afternoon.  The project went together without any major stumbling blocks along the way so that was a big plus as it always is on any project.  In my last post I had just completed construction of the spray booth itself. In this post we'll look at the assembly and painting of the window exhaust mount as well as the spray booth. 


This is the window exhaust mount that I needed to put together.  It is a simple box that I needed to build to have the exhaust hose from the spray booth connect to the workshop window.  I thought at first that all I would have to do is throw the hose out the window but as you will see in the next picture this simple would not work.


The window that you see in this photo is the closest window to my work table.  The window opens up from the top.  It unlocks and then tips inward at an angle from the top.  I thought the hose for the spray booth would fit between the top of the window and the window frame.  It was not even close so this box had to be constructed.


The 1/2" plywood box is 31" long, 12 1/2" high and 10 1/2" deep.  I still wanted daylight to come into the workshop so I cut an opening for a plexi-glass window.  On the end of the box I also cut a 3" diameter hole for the 3D printed hose mountings. The box was simple screwed together using  #6-1 1/4" deck screws. 



The hose fittings slid into the 3" diameter hole in the box with a nice snug fit and the red part and white elbow then connected to one another in the same manner.  It could not have worked out any better.




Once I was happy with the construction of the paint booth and the window exhaust assembly I primed and painted each with a couple coats of flat white paint.  I thought it best as the white will be nice and bright when I am spray painting to see easily what I am doing.   I can always repaint these assemblies some time down the road if I feel the need to spruce them up a bit.


Once the paint had dried I then started final assembly of the paint booth.  In the photo above you can see the lower exhaust fan and the mountings for the hose fittings.   These fittings were secured using zip ties that ran through the mounts and the back wall of the spray booth. 


Here the assembly is completed with the fans, connectors, hoses and electrical all in place. 



The electrical hookup for the two exhaust fans was pretty straight forward.  I wired the two fans together at the back using twist on wire nuts and then led all the wiring to the switch box.  From the switch box there is a power cord that is around four feet long  so it's easy to plug the unit in and turn it on or off. All the external wiring was then covered with protective split plastic tubing.  This cleaned up the look of the wiring and will give a little projection as well.


Here the spray booth is nearly complete.  All of the electrical is installed and the fans pump out a good amount of air.  In the photo above you can see light reflecting off of the Plexiglas window that I installed into the top of the spray booth to allow more light to come into the compartment. 


In this photo you can see the 18" diameter turntable that I mounted to the inside of the spray booth.  This was another simple task of just mount a bearing ring on to the wooden turn table and then mounting it to the inner base board of the spray booth using additional wood screws.  Should be a nice addition to the unit while I am spraying parts.


Here's an inside view of the window exhaust mount with the plexiglass installed in it now.   The plexiglass was just positioned over the hole and the brackets that I 3D printed hold it in securely with #6-1/2" wood screws.


In this shot of the paint booth interior you can see the mounts that I made for that assembly.  These mounts do not hold the window in but rather hold it up.  The window is dropped in from the top of the spray booth when it is sitting on the work table.  I could have mounted the plexiglass the same way I did the window exhaust mount but it would have been a smaller opening and I wanted to keep it as large as possible to allow more light to come into the spray booth while using it.  I also can cover up the plexiglass with clear plastic wrap to protect it from paint spray and then replace it as needed to keep things cleaner.



One last addition that I added to the spray booth was this hanger rod.   This is so I can hang small parts in the booth when I want to spray them. In the second photo you can also see the mounting tabs that I 3D printed to hold the plexiglass window in position.  I may put Velcro mounts on to these tabs and on to the underside of the window to keep it from falling out when I move the paint booth in or out of the workshop.  Not sure about that yet but it is possible to do.





Here finally is the end result of this project and another nice tool that will come in handy very quickly.  The window exhaust mount slid into the window frame perfectly.  This is actually a very quick process to install.  I simply have to remove the inner window which is about a 10 second operation and then slide the exhaust mount into the window frame.  It then is held in place using two small chains that are mounted to the window frame and the exhaust mount. 
  Again this part of the installation only takes another 10 seconds or so to do.  The nice thing about it is that the exhaust mount is fairly light weight and it rests securely in the window sill when I am using it.  Once I have finished painting whatever I am working on it can be removed from the window and put back to the way it was in short order.
  I really like the look of the spray booth and the exhaust mount. It looks good in the workshop photos above and still allows light to come in while using it. I'll put it to use very soon as I will need it to get back to working on the custom cooler for my motorcycle that I started before this project.  One thing leads to another but in this case it has led me to another nice tool that will come in handy when I want to spray paint parts any time the need arises.  Have a good day in your shop! 










2 comments:

  1. Beautiful job on that spray booth and a great write Up!

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  2. Hello Mark!
    Thanks for the kind words about my latest effort. This was a great project to design and build. I will be using it very soon so it will be a big plus in the workshop. Glad you enjoyed the post. Dave

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