I needed a new outside spray booth as my last one was damaged beyond repair by strong winds. I decided after review of other people’s ideas to make a collapsible PVC paint booth following a YouTube video.
The link is;
I made mine larger than the person in the video about 9” square X 7’-6” high. The 4 sides are not glued together and all come apart. It took a day to build with my wife helping me. It cost me at Lowes close to $200 in parts.
Parts Included;
• 24 lengths of 1’ pipe 10’ long
• 21 90 ° elbows.
• 40 Equal tee’s
• 2 X 24” HVAC Filters
• 1 X 20” HVAC Filter
• 3 packs of 3 mil thick 10” X 25 “ PVC sheet
• Bunch of Zip Ties
• PVC glue I can (no purple prep stuff needed)
• Box Fan (already had one)
Texas weather is quite forgivable for painting outside and I have cleared two play-fields in the drive way about 3 to 4 months ago. However, this cannot be my way to do things for cabinets as the auto paint is way too expensive to be lost in the wind. I need another paint booth.
Sides with door/ fan for outlet filters
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To get accurate fit up you need to cut similar length pipe fit up nipples. I glued each side PVC pipe assembly length that had the elbows and tees together. The adjoining pipe is a loose fit for later possible collapsing if needed.
Pipe 90° elbow, tee and nipples all glued
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The four pipe assembly’s held together with this minimum gluing concept and were further kept in place by the plastic sheet and zip ties.
Each side had its own 3 mil thick PVC sheet cover made on the ground. I connected with duct tape then immediately cut a hole and zip tied. It has up held well. To collapse further than to 4 sides you will need to cut the zip ties on two of the pipe assembly’s.
One of two sides between the door/fan inlet side and filter side.
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I pushed the 4 sides together and added the roof and floor plastic and held with Velcro dots. The sides are not glued to each other just pushed in as we need to take apart. The roof and floor plastic is removed by unclipping the Velcro dots.
View from inside of the door/fan Side 1.
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The two PVC horizontal poles are to brace the filters as they are pushed out by the fan.
Rear Side 2 with the outlet filters cut in.
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Notice the connecting tee locations. We filled the corners from the inside as this is a positive pressure booth with a strip of plastic connected by more Velcro dots.
View of side 3. (View of side 4 opposite is the same only reversed….duh!)
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I did not follow the position of the fan in the video however as it created a negative pressure that sucked in the sides and pushed the paint through the fan motor. I made mine a positive pressure booth with the fan protected by a filter pushing air into the booth and two filters in the opposite wall to get an air cross flow effect over the work. This had a few positive effects;
• The paint does not pass through the fan motor therefore it is safer
• The booth sides are blowing out not pulling in reducing my work space.
• My neighbors are protected, not like before from errant paint overspray.
• It’s not happening in my garage.
My fan is not one of the square fans but one that I had that is a lot more powerful. It all worked out and I had little overspray on the work and a lot of room. The paint booth is also heavy enough that the wind did not move it around. I think this was a success.
Booth in Operation
I primed the parts first with cheap auto primer (cans) this time. Last time I used more expensive auto paint primer but I think it’s a waste for pinball cabinets unless we are going to leave them outside which we are not. So when in doubt I cheap out! This did open some more small splits in the thin front face veneer. A little more fill, sanding and priming and they seem OK. I have read in a thread by Ken ‘Pinhead 52’ that sometimes it may be simpler to remake this front fascia. That occurred to me but it looks perfect currently but time will tell.
First up Priming
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3 medium coats of auto paint mixed to an appropriate color and this part is done.
Below is the lower cabinet. Even though the booth is 9’ square there is not really room to spray all together properly so after just a few minutes the paint is very dry and out it can go.
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Webbing next. Then cut the stencils for the stripes.
Westlake, LA
