I Need a Powerful Airbrush Exhaust System Built

A common design I have seen around here with the DIY paint guys is to use a common furnace blower and build that into a filter box unit made of plywood. If done right you get high air flow and good filtering on the cheap and still be easily moved by one or two people.

I would say to check with your local heating and air contractor to get a good used blower setup. Around here they usually toss the old heating systems in the metal bin so you will likely be able to pick and choose what ever size and design of blowers you want for next to nothing.

Yellow pages or Google.

Nashville Auto Body Paint Equipment & Supplies - Tennessee

tcmtech has a good idea too.

Cheap and easy to build. If you wanted to take it up a notch AC/heating and cooling duct work probably already exists to do what you want.

I've been know to stack 3-4 cheap filters together and pull the air through all of them, removing the outer one as it gets loaded.

Are you looking to design/construct your own? If yes. have you checked your insurance rider?

What about fire suppression and reporting?

And, in my fair city, a paint shop will require a special use permit, zoning variance or rezoning if your shop is not in an industrial use zone.

Sprinklers, or some type of fire suppression, if non-water based paints are sprayed, may also be required.

And better check about any environmental(local, state, federal) requirements. Emissions of hydrocarbon materials will likely require some kind of government approval and possibly a noise level study if you are exhausting to atmosphere. Where I am, we are required to do yearly reporting on both air and noise emissions- not an inexpensive thing- complete with Electronically Simulated Dispersion Modeling reports. You will likely end up like me, paying a consultant to do the paperwork.

So much for encouraging innovation.

Innovation is one thing, disregarding lessons learned is another.

As an individual who dealt with an unscheduled thermal event inside a paint spray booth, I have first hand knowledge (as do varied entities who make seemingly silly rules about such things) of the inherent danger that is a vapor extraction system.

A home made paint booth is often the first step in an insurance claim.

Google non spark air blowers. Graingers has them. You need to decide on the size in CFM depending on air change over needed. Build a skidded shed and place it outside to reduce noise and mobility. Just pipe it to the building where your filters are.

As others have commented you need to check with local government codes. This may not be one of those DIY installs. As many places have codes about paint shops. Needs to be explosion proof wired.

There is a portable filtered self contained unit used for welding they have snorkel devices to be put at the welding area. i suggest looking to purchase one that is used off a used equipment supplier or craigslist. i actually have one for sale. I aquired two from a govt. auction. one is being used for a dust collection system for my shop.

Great - all these responses and so far no-one has mentioned that the furnace blower is NOT explosion proof equipment. In my airbrush I often use hydrocarbon based flammable solvent loaded paint, so I assume you will do likewise. Now with an airbrush, the volume of flammable fumes generated is very small, so you might get away with this for many years, but I have been hesitant to try this due to the explosion proof issue. Blow things up one time and you're up the creek without a paddle when the fire inspector and insurance men get involved. That blower is going to have to be sealed away from any potential hazardous atmosphere. Definitely if you use it to suck the overspray out, there would be potential leakage around the connection from motor to fan blades. Check this out very carefully before building your system.

sometimes a little knowledge is dangerous. you would need to match the fuel (flam liq) with the airflow (approx. 900CFM) to get to the LEL. using an airbrush will not get you anywhere near that. toluene/mek is around 1-2% at the LEL. therefore you would need 9 to 18 CFM of pure vapor in your exhaust. now you must sustain this level until a rogue spark is created.

That's great for a home hobbiest - but this guy is talking a shop so I assume he is going commercial, and then the NFPA codes get involved, as well as insurance companies. There is Class I Div.2 for the probably never going to happen situations, such as he knocks over his super size 5 gallon can of lacquer thinner, and he has his motor right beside the booth, or he immediately throws the power switch, which isn't explosion proof. Anything like that happens and he will be liable. He needs to check this sort of thing out before using a non-explosion proof motor with a solvent based paint. I have had to build purged control panels for instrumentation on 100 gallon tanks with 95% water and 5% alcohol mixture. Want to run you LEL calculations on that very remotely possible hazardous atmosphere? The company's insurance man makes that call.

or he could get struck by lightning... i didnt see that in your rant.

Far too much negativity when someone comes up with an enterprising little business to lighten the over burdened tax payer and help an economy keep running. Always happy to knock a man down, never happy to offer a helping hand. Everyone in a place and it must be the same place as everyone else.

Not sure if you are aware, China is on a buying spree this week. 50 Deals in Russia yesterday, more in Italy today. UK on the books too. And the USA in its sights. Maybe you should help the lad and grow your industry before you are bought out next week and have no industry to speak of.

The problem isn't China - it's too much regulation because of the insurance industry - if he goes commercial and wants insurance, all the things I've warned about will have to be considered and his little paint booth is going to cost what a full automotive shop system did 40 years ago, with adjustment for inflation. China doesn't care if a 0.5% chance exists to have an explosion and kill a few people - US insurance companies do.

I don't see any negativity at all, except in your post.

I see reality everywhere else.

China is one hell of a poor example to hold up as a success story when they are the worst polluters and outlaws on the planet!

They must be a really good success story if they are buying up Russian and Italian business deals as if they are at a fire sale. They may even be the next business owners of the Euro Rail.

But, China owns $1.15 trillion of U.S. government debt - more than any other country - but U.S. taxpayers actually owe less money to China compared to recent years. China holds 10% of U.S. Treasuries.

Hmm!

Personally I am rather amazed that some of you ever manage to leave the house and or ever get anything done given your overwhelming concerns about what your insurance company may think or to what level you take 'what if' theories to in justifying things.

Not all of us live in the middle of nowhere and burn old motor oil and tires, so I understand your amazement and what goes on in the real world.

My Arkie neighbors used to dump old motor oil on the road in front of their house, 50 feet from their water well to "keep down the dust".

Didn't make it smart, or right.

If the paint shop is in the hills of Tenn. OP can do as he pleases. Which might include 3rd degree burns over his hands and face.

Otherwise he may have to follow some rules.

An experience of mine... yes, I did something.

Step 1: Boss says to Doorman "I wanna put in a paint booth. Draw one up, we'll build it."
Step 2: Doorman says "Nope. WAY too much risk, we should buy one."
Step 3: Boss says "You uncooperative bastard, I'll figure it out myself."
Step 4: Boss designs, builds spray booth. He is pleased that it didn't cost too much.
Step 5: 3 months later, annual fire inspection... "Oh, no no no no... " says the fire inspector. Red tagged, threat is made that if not removed, our business license will be suspended. Our insurance carrier gets a copy of these reports... we get some visits from their representatives.
Step 6: Remove homemade affair, replace with engineered spray booth. Boss is now unhappy with original expense being in dumpster, unhappier yet that now he has to pay the landfill to take it. His unhappiness regarding the issue continues, but you get the idea.

If further justification of my position is desired, steps 7 thru 12 describe the undesired unscheduled thermal event that was suppressed by the paint booth system.

Okay I started all this, because it sounded as though this was going commercial, not back room play toy. IF it goes commercial, insurance does get involved, as does OSHA, NFPA, NEC, and a host of other codes and regulations, and lawyers when things go wrong - very greedy lawyers.

If a back room toy, we still have a responsibility here to point out there is a minor possibility of a catastrophic occurrence. Just Google the issue and see what comes up. I guarantee you are going to get numerous insurance companies telling you to use EXP equipment, cause I already tried this. They go extreme on this and want Class I Div.1 for spray booths, which is very expensive and very difficult to install. That aside, we have to understand that some fools reading this site think the term "Guru" actually means something other than "too full of personal opinions", which is what it actually means. Therefore, the need to caution people that using a standard motor could lead to a fire. I am sure this site has some liability issues as well. No amount of disclaimers is ever sufficient to stop a hungry injury lawyer. I am pretty sure, considering how often other parties tie me into my internet activities, they'll be able to track any of us down if we tell someone to do something, without warning that a danger exists, no matter how remote.

Danger aside, you need to think of LAWYERS. That's a reality today.

At least the lad is concerned for the noise level, so he must have neighbours close by, so he is considering the noise pollution level. Its a good start!

If he was smart, he does not need electrical components to run the filter system fans. If he has a compressor, external, he can simply have a manifold with a connection for airbrush tools and a connection to a regulator, valve, air motor with a fan. No electrical connections at all, no sparks, no EXE fittings and no fuss with insurance companies. Pneumatics my Dear Watson.

From what I read and take of the OP's original post I am taking it that he is getting his own private shop which I take as being like my shop which is not a commercial building but a privately owned structure on his own property that just as with my shop he and his buddies will be using for their own private work.

Now that said as far as I know a guy using his own pneumatic sprayer or a 'rattle can' on his own property in his own building does not require any special permits or insurance waivers.

That's where I am coming from.

Thank you. The same view point I was taking as the lad does not sound old enough to run a business as he is very excited about is grand idea and his mates.

So the question all have failed with is:

arsone, is this a commercial venture you are taking up or a hobby venture that extra cash will be made from, running from home?

You have made a large number of assumptions to justify your (incorrect I think) conclusions that this is some kid going to paint model cars in his dad's garage.

I'll give you this, the word "air brush" does imply a small quantity of paint in the air.

Aside from that you, and the North Dakota fracker, are both just blowing hot gas.

As usual, we have completely aborted another fairly simple question into a pissing contest between members while leaving the poor befuddled OP far behind with our bickering.

I'm gone now. Any further responses to me will be a waste of bandwidth.

OP, good luck.

You a mind reader now too? Air brushes are small quantities of paints. It was simply, why complicate the question with insurances, regulations, laws, fire regs, and the BS you have there.

He asked for a simple filter system. Was that missed somewhere?

Total agreement with a few other here, how do you manage to achieve anything? Consultation with your insurance on a daily basis?

if this is a home shop. Get a few box fans and put filters on them. Use these to blow filtered air into the paint area. Make sure you have an air outlet of equal square footage to the air inlet. Wear a breathing mask!!!! Turn on the fans before you start painting and leave them on until the paint is dry.

If you want to capture the blow by paint, put filters on the outlet also. Check the outlet filters every time you use them or every hour after you start. The outlet filters will clog quicker than you would expect.