inflatable paint booth

[jeep63]

I'm getting close to painting my 3A body. I've seen those inflatable paint booths on Amazon and I'm curious if anyone has experience with them? The jeep body is quite small with the front fenders off. My plan is to setup inside my Garage since my driveway is gravel.

I've shot some small stuff with marginal success and this body is not show quality all. This is more about practice and getting a single color on the body. It was originally Luzon red; I've found several modern colors that I read are close and way cheaper than with the willys supplier wants for Luzon red paint.

I'm hoping to mitigate over-spray and have a semi clean environment for painting inside my garage.

 

[CraigStu]

Does it have a good air movement system? And will you have a good air supply system? I would be concerned about capturing all the overspray inside the bubble. Back in the day I have painted cars 2 ways. 1- in our 30x50 shop there was a walk door front and back. WE stacked up three 20" box fans in the back door blowing out. We cracked the front door about 6". We positioned the car just 6-8ft in front of that rear door w/ the exhaust fans. 2- Later I painted in my back yard. I had everything ready to go before the sun came up. As soon as I had light I pushed the car out, did a final tack cloth rub down and painted. The air is very calm for the first hour or so and that was enough. W/ hardened paint the few dust specs I got were easy to fix.

 

[jeep63]

The product can be setup with a 'support' fan that holds the structure up, and a separate fan for supply along with filters. There is a very pricey option for an exhaust fan structure that connects to the side to add a suction side with more filters. That is getting costly for my plans. This is likley a once or twice effort, but it seems better than trying to rig plastic hanging from the ceiling to trap the overspray.

I'll still be less than if I farmed it out; I think.

 

[MovingAlong]

I'm getting close to painting my 3A body. I've seen those inflatable paint booths on Amazon and I'm curious if anyone has experience with them? The jeep body is quite small with the front fenders off. My plan is to setup inside my Garage since my driveway is gravel.

I've shot some small stuff with marginal success and this body is not show quality all. This is more about practice and getting a single color on the body. It was originally Luzon red; I've found several modern colors that I read are close and way cheaper than with the willys supplier wants for Luzon red paint.

I'm hoping to mitigate over-spray and have a semi clean environment for painting inside my garage.

Any chance you'd be willing to share which booths you're looking at?

I've painted cars in single stall garages, carports, driveways and parking lots. Gravel wouldn't bother me a bit, just wet it down first.

Was curious about Luzon Red and how much I could find out about it. Seems like a real nice color. Also, saw a tidbit that it wasn't super glossy. What paints are you considering?

 

[jeep63]

Any chance you'd be willing to share which booths you're looking at?

I've painted cars in single stall garages, carports, driveways and parking lots. Gravel wouldn't bother me a bit, just wet it down first.

Was curious about Luzon Red and how much I could find out about it. Seems like a real nice color. Also, saw a tidbit that it wasn't super glossy. What paints are you considering?

Amazon paint booth

Original Paint

Here are the alternatives:

• Alternatives
  • Ford
    • Medium Red 1988/89
    • Code 6153 - Automotive Touchup
  • Toyota
    • 1998 3N4 Red
  • Mercedes
    • Desert Red (early 70s)
  • Rustoleum 7768830 Burgundy

 

[Racer_X]

Funny coincidence... I was just watching this video last week.
It says it is episode 4, so you might want to check out other episodes before and after to hear more about what he has to say.

 

[MovingAlong]

Amazon paint booth

Original Paint

Here are the alternatives:

• 
  
• Alternatives
  • Ford
    • Medium Red 1988/89
    • Code 6153 - Automotive Touchup
  • Toyota
    • 1998 3N4 Red
  • Mercedes
    • Desert Red (early 70s)
  • Rustoleum 7768830 Burgundy

WOW!! That original paint is pricey!

You had probably already found these in the various Jeep forums, but if not:

• PPG/Ditzler: 70028
• DuPont: 93-70138R
• Sherwin-Williams: 32954R / JK-826R

Using those codes, you can get cheaper paint mixed most anywhere...

I could paint a jeep in that booth. But if you're setting up in the garage, why not just put down Visqueen on the floor and drape the walls accordingly?

One note about $20 box fans, they use brushed motors which can generate sparks. Better/safer to use them to push clean air then to pull dirty air... just keep a 20x20 HVAC filter taped over the back of them like you would in a woodshop so you're not blowing dust into the area.

 

[jeep63]

I have read horror stories of breakers popping and the booth colapsing. Deeper reading finds in most cases it is an overloaded circuit; as is the case above.

I have enough circuits to put both fans on separate circuits and my compressor is on its own 220 feed. I think I could reduce this risk to an acceptable level.

I need to do a final analysis with costs going this route vs. finding a guy who does it on the side...

 

[Smedley]

I have painted panels in my shop by covering up all of the nearby important things that can't get overspray (tool box, parts shelves, etc), cracking open the big shop door about 6" and throwing a heavy duty blower fan pointing out the door to move air out. Other than overspray on the floor (minimal, mostly dried to dust and able to sweep away) and on some of my moving blankets/tarps, I had no issues.

Love the CJ's. I am doing a CJ2A in full military mock up as a tribute to my Papaw who drove one in the ETO in WW2. Post pics of yours sometime, always good to see them being restored and back on the road!

 

[jeep63]

WOW!! That original paint is pricey!

You had probably already found these in the various Jeep forums, but if not:

• PPG/Ditzler: 70028
• DuPont: 93-70138R
• Sherwin-Williams: 32954R / JK-826R

Using those codes, you can get cheaper paint mixed most anywhere...

I could paint a jeep in that booth. But if you're setting up in the garage, why not just put down Visqueen on the floor and drape the walls accordingly?

One note about $20 box fans, they use brushed motors which can generate sparks. Better/safer to use them to push clean air then to pull dirty air... just keep a 20x20 HVAC filter taped over the back of them like you would in a woodshop so you're not blowing dust into the area.

I know, right!!!

I had not found the codes/manufacturers you list. I'm going to chase those down, thanks!

I'll see about getting estimates for paint mixing and a few places.

I have enough windows in this garage to make a cross breeze for supply and exhaust. I suppost I could drape the walls, cover the floor and shoot it that way. It will be cheaper too and I can mitigate the dust as much as possible.I can build a box for the exhaust and put that fan outside to pull through a filter.

Thanks for giving me some ideas on different approaches.

 

[gahrajmahal]

Don’t spray inside the garage if it’s attached to your house! The main disadvantage about painting outside is the temperature variance over the course of a day. Sunshine on your body panels will heat it up quite a bit making it very difficult to control orange peel. Painting in the garage would be ideal then. Go to your local HVAC company and ask for an old furnace squirrel cage blower and use that as your exhaust fan of ask for a free one on Craigslist etc.

I like Orion paint products for low cost do-it-yourself paint jobs. It is pro level automotive paint and can be mixed to factory colors. Their primer and clear coats spray easily and predictably and handle wide temperatures. They ship anywhere and are out of Texas.

I sprayed our MGB in the driveway under a Harbor Freight 10 x 20 carport on a hot day. The paint, TCP Global single stage, fought me all the way. Orion paints were much better. I’m a car painter from the groovy 70’s and new paints are more of a challenge.

 

[MovingAlong]

I know, right!!!

I had not found the codes/manufacturers you list. I'm going to chase those down, thanks!

I'll see about getting estimates for paint mixing and a few places.

I have enough windows in this garage to make a cross breeze for supply and exhaust. I suppost I could drape the walls, cover the floor and shoot it that way. It will be cheaper too and I can mitigate the dust as much as possible.I can build a box for the exhaust and put that fan outside to pull through a filter.

Thanks for giving me some ideas on different approaches.

Pulling through a filter doesn't eliminate the flash potential for igniting the vapors. Even outside, you've still got a tunnel of flammable vapor leading back into the garage. Not saying people don't do it that way, just that it would be better the other way.

One thing I haven't shot yet is the new water-based automotive paints. They are generally non-flammable and might be interesting to consider.

 

[Smedley]

I suppost I could drape the walls, cover the floor and shoot it that way. It will be cheaper too and I can mitigate the dust as much as possible.I can build a box for the exhaust and put that fan outside to pull through a filter.

This is my plan for the future when I spray my tub and frame and such. Drop plastic from the (open) rafters and continue with my fan exhausting through the door.

 

[MovingAlong]

Don’t spray inside the garage if it’s attached to your house!

Yes, my garages were detached..

 

[jeep63]

MG looks great!

Thanks for the tip; my garage is not attached to the house; there is a breezeway conneting them.

I'm going to look into the paint supplier you mention too.

This is a great thread for my research, I really appreciate the tips.

Also, there are pics of my 51 work in my Cozy Garage thread found in the signature.

 

[gahrajmahal]

Jeep63, back in the day I had a CJ5. I painted it in my folks garage with a box fan in the window. It was light blue too with blue blended to dark blue 15 x 10 wagon wheels. 302 V8, headers and a torquer cam, three speed and get out and manually lock the front hubs. The top was off all summer long and I had puffy coat door panels for the winter to make it warmer and a very loud stereo and CB radio.

Man, I was cool back then! Ha, ha

 

[txvwnut]

I've talked to several people that have used the inflatable "paint booths" from the jungle shopping network and a few other of the import shopping options and all of them said the same thing. They do not work well for an all over paint job as they do not evacuate fast enough. If you are just needing to spray a quarter and blend to mating panels then they are kind of decent for that but they weren't really impressed with the over all performance of "booth" in either application. Eastwood sells one that is made in east Texas I think, that is guaranteed to work like a real booth but it costs almost as much as an entry level crossflow booth does. I haven't watched the video of the collapsed booth yet but when I was looking into these for an at home option all of the ones I looked at said it was recommended to support the booth from overhead when using it.

 

[jeep63]

After hearing some good tips on other approaches and adding up the cost, I really think I'm going to drape the walls from the ceiling down and cover the floor with plastic; build an exhaust port out one of the side windows with an hvac squirrel cage fan and a filter. Then, use the 'man door' with a stack of 20" box fans covered in furnace filters for supply. This should work for my purposes. It is not a show Jeep I just want to restore the single original color 'look'. The seller painted in in the 60s when he was in college with a bright red rustoleam paint. It has a great patina, but I prerfer the luzon red color.

I think the drapped plastic will keep the walls and other stuff protected well enough. Not sure if I want to cover the ceiling yet or not.

 

[58Yeoman]

I bought two rolls of visqueen at Menard's and hung it from the ceiling of my shop with 10' ceilings. I circled the double sided part, raised the double door and hung more visqueen from the door to floor. I used a box fan for exhaust and it worked fine. The picture shows it before I unfolded it completely. Red is going to be your most costly color because of all the colors added to it. I used urethane with hardener in Capri Cream..

 

[Stuart in MN]

Funny coincidence... I was just watching this video last week.
It says it is episode 4, so you might want to check out other episodes before and after to hear more about what he has to say.

Sarah-N-Tuned just had an episode on her channel a couple weeks ago where her inflatable paint booth collapsed on top of her Honda CRX restoration project. Fortunately it was just in the primer stage and not final paint, so she'll be able to fix the marks left on the car's roof.

 

[niget2002]

The product can be setup with a 'support' fan that holds the structure up, and a separate fan for supply along with filters. There is a very pricey option for an exhaust fan structure that connects to the side to add a suction side with more filters. That is getting costly for my plans. This is likley a once or twice effort, but it seems better than trying to rig plastic hanging from the ceiling to trap the overspray.

I'll still be less than if I farmed it out; I think.

I have an inflatable booth. Get the Elephant's trunk exhaust add-on with a high-flow explosion proof fan. It's worth it. Otherwise the overspray seems to just stay in the air and settles back onto whatever you're painting.

I also went through the trouble of building a PVC skeleton on the inside of the booth and I hung 4' LED lights from the PVC. The additional lighting helped a lot while spraying. The PVC skeleton allowed me to turn off the fans while the paint cured and let the structure settle down onto the PVC.

My booth is one of the smaller ones. It was small enough I can inflate it in the middle of my shop and it just barely touches the ceiling.

I use mine for painting motorcycle parts.

You can see the lights and PVC pipes in this photo. It doesn't look like I have a picture of the elephant trunk setup. I used long fan shroud to direct the fumes out of the shop and out the garage door.

It takes me about an hour to set it up when I want to spray something. The first setup took over a day with all the PVC and light work. The PVC is just press-fit together and not glued so I can take it apart and store it in a corner of the shop. I numbered all the corners so it's easier to put back together.

 

[rustrunner]

A friend had one all set up both fans blowing. Put down the base and went into the garage for a coffee. Just happened to look out and the booth was deflating. Found the fan to inflate it stopped. He acted pretty quick and swapped fans. Found out the first fan overheated and seized up an dumped the breaker. Might be best to get another fan to use on the exhaust and use the spare as a backup.

 

[gahrajmahal]

After hearing some good tips on other approaches and adding up the cost, I really think I'm going to drape the walls from the ceiling down and cover the floor with plastic; build an exhaust port out one of the side windows with an hvac squirrel cage fan and a filter. Then, use the 'man door' with a stack of 20" box fans covered in furnace filters for supply. This should work for my purposes. It is not a show Jeep I just want to restore the single original color 'look'. The seller painted in in the 60s when he was in college with a bright red rustoleam paint. It has a great patina, but I prerfer the luzon red color.

I think the drapped plastic will keep the walls and other stuff protected well enough. Not sure if I want to cover the ceiling yet or not.

Going this route will work awesome for you as 58Yeoman’s post of his Corvair paint job shows. But here’s a cautionary tale from the HAMB, Ryan’s other awesome message board where a member from Japan was wanting opinions about what method or product would work to remove overspray mist left on his motorcycle and other shop items when he draped his shop and then sprayed clear coat on his project. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/removing-2k-clear-overspray.1347549/#post-15825855

I recommend that all areas of your shop, tool box, bicycles, refrigerator etc. be covered with a simple drop cloth or thin plastic to keep overspray from sticking on those things.

As far as spraying, my Avitar car, 1968 Chrysler 300 convertible was sprayed with Orion paints in the fall of 2024 in a booth I was able to rent. I used a high end HTE, high transfer efficiency gun. Good for smaller air compressors as it does not use as much air to atomize the paint. Since I was switching between several colors, gold, candy red and clear it needed cleaning between each color. I wish I had invested in the 3M spray system where you toss the fluid body instead of cleaning it. This is what the auto body shop uses where I was working. I would also invest in the largest volume ( 1 quart) throwaway cups. I had smaller ones and had to reload my paint to make one pass around the car. This was exhausting and made it difficult to maintain a wet edge when working around the car. I had a 10 hour day just spraying the car. I came back the next day to untape and move the car from the booth. Here is the Chrysler after lots of sanding and buffing after due to dust let into the booth and a few runs to sand out.









Except for the sanding and buffing photos These are photos I took for my insurance company. I increased their value for the new paint jobs. Something you might want to do too.

 

[rharman]

Are there any spray booths for rent in your area? If so, I'd go that route.

 

[Sweetcorn]

I have an inflatable booth. Get the Elephant's trunk exhaust add-on with a high-flow explosion proof fan. It's worth it. Otherwise the overspray seems to just stay in the air and settles back onto whatever you're painting.

I also went through the trouble of building a PVC skeleton on the inside of the booth and I hung 4' LED lights from the PVC. The additional lighting helped a lot while spraying. The PVC skeleton allowed me to turn off the fans while the paint cured and let the structure settle down onto the PVC.

My booth is one of the smaller ones. It was small enough I can inflate it in the middle of my shop and it just barely touches the ceiling.

I use mine for painting motorcycle parts.

You can see the lights and PVC pipes in this photo. It doesn't look like I have a picture of the elephant trunk setup. I used long fan shroud to direct the fumes out of the shop and out the garage door.

It takes me about an hour to set it up when I want to spray something. The first setup took over a day with all the PVC and light work. The PVC is just press-fit together and not glued so I can take it apart and store it in a corner of the shop. I numbered all the corners so it's easier to put back together.

I have what looks to be the same booth as yours, but the next size larger.

I really like mine. I use the two fans and have no problems with air flow. Not trying to toot my own horn, but I get excellent results with it.

It's less time to set mine up than it would be to cover/shield the rest of the shop from overspray.

Combine the better results with it taking less time and I'm very happy I bought it.

If I sprayed all the time, I would have set my shop up differently. 6-10 times a year is a realistic average for me, so I didn't want to permanently commit a place for a "real" booth.

 

[jeep63]

I appreciate all the tips and sharing of projects.

This will be my first attempt at spraying more than just a small component. I'm not sure if I'll spay more, but I'm not ruling it out. I'm building a spreadsheet to get a cost comparison between this approach, covering the shop, and finding someone who will shoot it on the side for me. I've worked with shops to paint jeep fenders, hoods, grills for other restorations I've done, but those parts were new or near new. This Jeep body has many patch panels and is not perfect. A lot of guys I talk with will not shoot something in their shop that is not perfect because they want all products to leave looking great. I'm just looking to get one color on this Jeep body. I need a guy who shoots on the side for cash and does get obsessed with his reputation, but still does good work and understands my expectations. This is a unicorn in my opinion, so I'm looking to do it myself as a chance to learn; kinda like the body repairs and welding I'm going now. Never did it before so I'm learning on that step too.

 

[larry4406]

Not an inflatable booth, but I saved these pictures of a sliding foldaway paint booth off the net years ago. I thought it was quite clever and still do.

 

[racecougar]

Very clever!

 

[jeep63]

That is some ingenuity there for sure! My setup, based on how I'm leaning now, will be less so. If I remember I'll post up shots, but that will likely be late Spring. I don't want to paint until I have the chassis ready to sit the body on. My goal is August to be done, but time will tell.

 

[racecougar]

If you go the "drape the walls" route, cover your floor if you care about it. It take a long time for the overspray to wear back off the concrete.

This being GJ, I'm surprised no one has beat me to the suggestion of building a separate shop for painting. I use the old shop when I want to shoot anything; don't want overspray in the new shop. I use a furnace fan in another door to pull a draft.

 

[jeep63]

Ha, you are right there with "build a separate shop" advice from this forum! lol

My floor is that 'coin tile' with slat walls; I think it is GarageTek. From welding splatter, to gouges from jack stands this floor has seen better days. I'm considering pulling all the tiles up, fixing/prepping the concrete and coating it. I love the walls of my garage, but not the floor.

 

[rharman]

Google "auto spray booth rentals maryland usa". Several hits.

 

[Ohmthis]

I use a pop up canopy that I wrap the walls in plastic. It’s only 10’x10’, so a little on the smaller side. I use a round fan with filters to draw air in and out.

 

[niget2002]

This was my first attempt at a paint booth and what prompted me to buy the inflatable one. It 'worked'.

 

[Cougar]

Neighbor has one says it works great.
The cars he has done look very good.
Thinking of getting one.