Spray Booths

A spray booth is essentially a medium sized box designed to hold an object as you spray paint it. This box is enclosed on all sides but the front, and allows you to paint in an enclosed area without sending paint and messy colors all around the room. Sizes for these objects vary a great deal, depending on the purpose you intend to use it for. Some spray booths and paint booths are designed for small craft applications or airbrush work, and can be placed on a table. These can be used to contain small pieces of furniture such as stools or wooden panels.

Other types of spray booths are much larger and are built to contain larger items. Auto spray booths, for example, are large enough to contain entire vehicles for body paintwork and more detailed airbrushing of decals and similar adornments so popular in the world of custom auto paint. Wood finishing booths are generally smaller than auto spray booths, but are still large enough to contain full sized pieces of furniture. You can even get varying sizes of wood finishing booths for applications ranging from dining table work to individual chairs.

One of the main spray booth purposes is simple cleanliness. The difficulty with spray paint, of course, is that it tends to be very messy. As an aerosol, spray paint can spread throughout an entire room, coating everything in a layer of red, blue, or green mist that is at best annoying and at worst ruinous to furniture, windows, and pets. The main purpose of a spray booth is simply to contain the paint, and the simplest models usually don’t pretend to do anything more.

Perhaps more dangerous, especially when working on large projects like automobiles or furniture, is the possibility – the probability, in fact – of paint fumes. Again, spray paint is an aerosol – it can coat your lungs just as easy as a piece of wood or metal. Advanced high-end spray booths like auto spray booths or wood finishing booths usually include advanced airflow technology to keep air moving and filter paint fumes from the car surroundings. This technology protects the painter from the dangerous fumes that would otherwise linger in the air.

Another advantage is that, because the aerosol paint is swept out of the air, you prevent dripping, condensing paint. When you’re working on a chair or a piece of furniture, drip prevention is a nice benefit to keep your work clean. When you’re working on a car or something that requires the utmost precision in paint, the prevention of drips becomes extremely important.

The simplest and cheapest types of spray booths are usually those used for very small projects. Artistic spray booths like these are small enough to be used on a tabletop or in a garage and range in price from one or two hundred to around a thousand dollars, depending on the quality of construction and number of features included in the spray booth design.

These artistic spray booths come in a number of sizes and models and can be bought for any purpose. Spray booths like these are generally very popular for detailed airbrushing applications, such as the construction of scale model planes, cars, or other similar hobby crafts. Some craft spray booths are as simple as a metal or wood box and can even be put together yourself if you so wish. On the other hand, some of the more advanced models include fans and filter systems based on the designs of the larger spray booths and will pull the fumes and drip aerosol paint out of the air before it can do any serious damage anywhere.

When you’re working with furniture and other wood finishing activities – if you’re painting a table, say, staining a set of chairs, or applying a finishing lacquer to a fine wood book case – you have to worry about fumes just as much as when you’re working with spray paint applied by an aerosol can. Sometimes, you may even want to use spray paint in finishing your products. Either way, the purchase of a good wood-finishing booth will help you greatly in both your safety and the quality of your final product. If you own a carpentry business or do a lot of carpentry work, the purchase of a good wood finishing booth will more than make up for the cost you’ll pay.

Wood finishing booths vary widely in design depending on the level and type of work you need to do. Some are “bench top” models meant to be used on top of a work bench or carpentry table and are built to fit in with a small garage or shed workshop. If you generally only do your own work and don’t do a lot of large-scale work, these bench top wood-finishing booths may be the best choice for you. If, on the other hand, you do a large volume of wood finishing work or work with larger wood pieces like dining room tables or large chairs, you may want to go with something larger. Some of the biggest and best of the line wood finishing booths are sheds in and of themselves. You walk in, work inside it in a ventilated, air-filtering environment, and come out healthy with a great product.

One of the most important situations in which to use a spray booth is when you’re working with auto paint and an expensive automobile. Auto painting is a tricky and very precise process, requiring a perfectly smooth application of paint in very large volumes. Those large volumes can lead to drips and, more dangerously, airborne fumes which can be dangerous for the workers. A good auto spray booth will clean and filter the air you’re working in and prevent you from undergoing any ill effects that might arise from working with paint on a large scale.

At this level you’re usually looking at a ticket price of several thousand dollars, so make sure you care about your profession or hobby enough to spend that kind of cash. Consider, though, that automobile painting and airbrush work is a rare and highly paid skill to have – if you have the skill it takes to apply the paint, buying the environment in which to do it will certainly pay off well and quickly for the initial investment you make.

If you’re prepared to make the investment and buy an auto spray booth, it’s time to consider some of your options. First, if you plan to be mixing your own paint, you may want to buy a special paint mixing booth specifically for the process of mixing paint. Buying your own paint mixer will allow you to customize color exactly to what you need in your own workshop, without relying on hardware store employees who don’t know exactly what you need.

Auto spray booths generally come in a few different models of ventilation. Some use standard cross draft technology, with intakes on one end of the room and filters with fans on the other. This keeps a constant sideways draft going within the room and makes sure paint can be applied efficiently and well while removing any harmful fumes from the air. Downdraft auto spray booths have a constant downward draft of air, applying an equal amount of air pressure across the entire top of the vehicle and making for a good clean paint job.

If you’re looking for color or paint application through the powder spray method, you’ll have to buy a specialized piece of equipment called a powder booth. These allow you to apply a powder based colorant to whatever it is you wish to paint. Powder colorants have varying uses and differ somewhat from normal spray paint techniques, so do your research and know exactly what you need. If you plan on doing detailed airbrush work or normal spray painting, you will probably be better off just getting a simple spray booth, whether that be for a piece of furniture, a craft, or an entire car. If, on the other hand, you think that your project would be better used with a powder spray booth, you might as well just go for it and get the powder booth.

Sometimes, you also may be interested in powder coating multiple items at a time. In that case, you may be interested in getting a powder booth batch package, which is capable of powder coating as many items you want, using a number of techniques. Some use traditional conveyor belt methods, while others use rotating trays or similar techniques to powder coat as many items as you want in your powder booth.

Sometimes you need to apply a lot of heat, and fast. Maybe you work ceramics, maybe you just need to bake a big loaf of bread – whatever the reason, batch ovens are a necessity for many craftsmen and an absolute aid to many others. If you think you need a batch oven, you’ll definitely want to start looking around for exactly what you need. Know the size of the project you intend to use the batch oven for – batch ovens often range in size from smaller walk-in varieties to containers large enough for trucks or cars to drive into and work inside of. Obviously, these vast size differences are also going to make for a difference in cost – make sure you only pay for what you need, not a lot of extra space you’ll never use.

What it really comes down to is the price and the price range for spray booths vary intensely. The most inexpensive spray booth could cost you around $2,000 while the most expensive can run almost $100,000. Of course you must take into account the different features that you would purchase with your spray booth, as the features can make the price go up. Typically, a basic booth will cost between $2,000 and $10,000 whereas a customized booth could cost as much as $20,000. If you are trying to decide between an open faced or closed booth, keep in mind that open faced booths are generally lower in price that closed booths. You should also be aware that spray booth manufacturers will offer their quotes in a variety of ways. Some manufacturers will include everything within their quote, whereas, some other companies may only include the price of the booth and then tack on charges for delivery and installation. When you are obtaining quotes, be sure that you obtain a complete quote with all charges that you may incur because no one wants a thousand dollar surprise on the day of the delivery.

Obviously, the first thing to do in looking at any of these items – batch ovens, spray booths, powder booths – is to know exactly what you want before you start shopping. Do you need to paint a car? Bake ceramics? Apply a powder coating to a series of items? Maybe you’re just working on a small airbrush craft and need a clean and safe environment to work in. Whatever the reason, the first step towards buying your product is to know what you want to do with it.

After that, the best and simplest thing to do is simply to start searching the web. Get online, log on to your favorite search engine, and start searching for the sort of tools you need. Often you can order online or through a local dealer – if you include the name of your city or town in the search terms, you’ll usually come up with machinery and equipment dealers in your area who may offer a competitive deal on an auto spray booth and a batch oven, and save the very high expense of shipping and handling fees. No matter what you decide to do, a little research beforehand goes a long way, and may make the difference between a decent product and a great one.