Painting Your Airplane in the Hangar?

Bruce A. Frank wrote:
No one seems to be going into the plastic paint booth method. A frame
work built large enough to cover the plane, made from plastic pipe and
fittings (Friction fit or screws used to hold things together) or from
2X4s. Draped, stapled and duct taped with 6 mill clear plastic (big roll
from Home Depot) . Overlap slit for a door works OK. We actually
installed a spring closed framed door with gasket seals around and edge
flange (door opened inward so pressure didn't blow it open...gasket also
worked better that way)

Booth is pressure fed with duct fan or ventilation fan ducted and
blowing through two layers of furnace filters to eliminate dust. Booth
exhausts through duct that exits the hangar (or the large doors are kept
open) through two or three furnace filters to eliminate paint mist.

Floor of booth is mopped down before painting and/or floor is covered
with a damp painters cotton drop cloth. Many florescent lights or
halogen placed OUTSIDE of the booth illuminating through the clear
plastic. Tyvec suit with disposable shoe covers.

Fan does not have to be anything special because it never sees any paint
solvent vapors. And with good ventilation vapor concentrations never
reach anything close to explosive levels. Use good organic filtered
(carbon) respirator or (better) fresh air mask from remote supply source.

The plastic paint boot was a permanent part of our winter hangar and was
pressurized with a "torpedo" propane heater controlled by a thermostat.
After the day's work we retired to, if no plane was present, the heated
"cabana" for cold beer.

The heater helped to force dry many projects by our running the
thermostat up once the paint was shot. Some people ran the heater, cut
it off, shot the paint, then turned the heater/blower back on to reduce
chance of any dust flying about. Our booth produced many a dust free
paint job.


An elegant solution. Essentially, a homemade
paint booth.

Don W.