Supplied Air Hood For Painting

[jclay]

Anybody have recommendations as to a particular brand/model of supplied air/positive pressure hoods for spray painting? I'm looking at the sort of supplied air respirators that these folks make: breathecool.com

I've been considering cobbling something together with an old shop vac as the air supply fan, a bunch of vac hose I have and my old full face respirator from work, with the hose affixed to one of the threaded filter bosses. I can make that work but a store-bought unit would be nice. Can any of you recommend units you like or ones you'd avoid? At 400 to 500 bucks it's probably worth the convenience.

I'm also looking around for a small spark resistant blower with which to make an open face spray booth so same question wrt recommendations. There are plenty out there but they tend to be larger and more expensive than I'd like.

[Rody]

John,

My suggestion...don't half ass paint as it will never meet your desired level of finish and will be a health hazard to you. If you want to paint, organize and plan well before committing, then spend the money to do it right.

Here's a link to an old thread that has good info for both booths and open faced systems... https://www.velocipedesalon.com/foru...ht=paint+booth

As for supplied air, it's hard to beat a complete and tested/certified system.

Best wishes,

Rody

[jclay]

John,

My suggestion...don't half ass paint as it will never meet your desired level of finish and will be a health hazard to you. If you want to paint, organize and plan well before committing, then spend the money to do it right.

Here's a link to an old thread that has good info for both booths and open faced systems... https://www.velocipedesalon.com/foru...ht=paint+booth

As for supplied air, it's hard to beat a complete and tested/certified system.

Best wishes,

Rody

Thanks Rody,

For context: I've painted about a dozen frames in the carport, mostly with PPG or Nason products (one and two stage) but also with alkyd oils. I get very good results; not perfect, not contest winning but plenty good. I simply have to pick a calm day, not during heavy pollen, with reasonable humidity and prep the carport and surrounding area well (sweep the ceiling, mist the slab and surrounding area). A little hassle but not really a problem for my throughput! I can get the results I want but I am committed to upgrading my PPE with a low pressure supplied air system and shoot-suit; an APR, whether full face or half face just doesn't provide the level of protection I want (and I can't wear glasses with my full face unit). And I agree: An engineered system would be a whole lot nicer and better than cobbling something together with stuff on hand; at this point it's clear that I'll go that way (engineered system). So I'm curious to know if anyone can recommend a particular supplied air unit. I've looked at Allegro, 3M, ProAir, and some other low pressure units but the Breathecool units look like the best bang/buck so far. And I'd get the one with the sand blasting hood so I can use it for my out in the yard blasting work, too. They're affordable and the reviews are excellent but I'd like to hear from my FB siblings.

As to a spray booth: I don't have to have one but if I can find a relatively inexpensive spark resistant blower then I'd consider making an open faced spray booth or turn an 8x12 shed into one. It's not really for an improvement in my painting results but for reducing fugitive emissions.

The upshot of all of that is if anyone has relevant experience or equipment suggestions I'm all ears.

[jclay]

As an alternative to a supplied air respirator system, I'm evaluating the feasibility of safely using my shop and it's exhaust fan as the basis of an open front spray booth. The goals are to reduce VOC emissions to both the outdoor atmosphere and my breathing zone without blowing anything up or starting a fire. Improving the quality of my paint jobs is not a goal, but I wouldn't mind it.

A couple of initial reality checks:
1) Two of the three legs of the fire triangle exist in a spray booth: Oxygen and fuel. Only ignition is controllable.
2) There is no such thing as an explosion proof blower; only blowers with spark resistant construction (SRC) exist.
3) This is not going to be a production booth; potentially combustible mixtures will exist for a total of about 2 or 3 hours per year, in batches of a few minutes, followed by fresh air flush (between coats, fan running continuously, obviously). That constitutes a Class 1, Division 2 environment (C1 meaning the existence of combustible gas mixtures, D2 meaning that the C1 condition does not normally exist, it's extremely unusual).

The requirement, then, is to prevent electrical arcing and ignition temperatures in the potentially combustible zones without making my shop C1D2 compliant.

The few outlets on the fan end of the shop ( Flickr ) will have nothing in them; everything will be unplugged; and I can physically seal them off if I feel the need. The cord for the fan will be replaced with a longer unit so it can be plugged in at the air supply end of the shop ( Flickr ). There are no switches anywhere near the fan half of the shop. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling: While technically within the 3 or 5' exclusion zone near the face of the booth (I believe that's the general standard) they'll be well flushed by incoming air. They don't generate ignition temperatures (nowhere near them) and arcing at the pins seems a pretty remote possibility. Nothing else about them would arc short of a catastrophy (broken tube, ballast exploding, wire shorting) and I can tape the lens to the receptacles so as to pretty effectively seal them anyway. And I'm not going to smack the lights and torch off the overspray.

The motor is TEFC and so suitable for C1D2 environments. I'll tape, to hermetically seal, the connections between the motor leads and the power cord, or hermetically tape off the whole make-up-box. I'll also make certain that air can't leak into the motor can via the motor lead access; I can pot it if necessary....shoot, I could pot the entire make-up-box for that matter. The power cable is exposed and so not C1D2 compliant but given that they're in good shape, inspected and not going to be damaged and cause an arc, as would eventually happen in an industrial environment, I'm comfortable with that.

Spark Resistant Construction (SRC): I've read everything I can find about SRC for metallic fans and blowers and it all seems to boil down to protecting against sparks due to rotating parts making contact with stationary parts, and implicitly in the context of mechanical failure or grossly excessive wear as you might find in full time operation and/or poorly maintained equipment. Static charge accumulation and subsequent discharge doesn't seem to be an issue (as it can be for plastic fans and pipes) assuming that everything is properly grounded (as it is in my case). My fan has generous clearances between the blades and framework nozzle, is in excellent condition with no detectable play in anything and is seriously overbuilt relative to the ¾ hp motor that I installed (the fan is rated for much more power). Catastrophic shaft and bearing failure seems highly unlikely so in-spite of not being made with SRC the likelihood of blade/frame contact and arc seems remote. I do need to double check for thrust displacement of the shaft now that I think of it.

If I go this route then I'd install filters in front of the fan and on the windows where the make-up air is introduced (there are four). Sheets would be hung from the ceiling and secured to the floor by weights to form the sides and fan end of the booth.

My tentative judgement is that the likelihood of an ignition event, under these specific conditions, is very low, almost non-existent. I also tend to think that, given the rather large flowrate of the fan, the flammable gas concentration won't reach the LEL. I might be able to borrow a combustible gas detector from a former colleague to confirm.

That's my train of thought. Being prudently and professionally timid about such stuff (handling rated areas on the cheap) I'm far from certain that I'll employ it, and I do not recommend that others do so, but if nothing else it was an interesting exercise. The safest way to spray is to do so where there simply aren't ANY potential ignition sources (including synthetic clothing on a dry day).....for me that's the carport with the lights turned off (the ambient light is adequate). If the list has any other process/process control/HAZOP engineers with experience in dealing with rated areas I'd be interested in hearing your reactions.

[jclay]

I'm sure this will generate some laughs but I cobbled a supplied air system together. It's quite simple: My full face air purifying respirator formerly from work, a small shop vac, some air hose, duct tape and zip ties; I have a lot more hose than is shown in the photo. I haven't used in combat yet but testing is promising, a slam dunk really. Notice the clip on the hose so I can connect it to my apron (over my Tyvek shoot suit), thereby relieving stress on the hose and facepiece. High tech details.

The little effer floods the facepiece with air, so much that I don't cinch it up tightly; I just let it flood out of the exhaust port and around the perimeter of the face piece. And I can wear my glasses. How nice it will be to be able to see what the hell I'm actually doing while blasting! There won't be any reverse flow into the respirator; there's way too much airflow for that. If I was making a living I'd obviously spend the money to get a blast cab, spray booth, proper supplied air system and so on but as a one or two frames/year hobbiest that doesn't make economic sense IF I can come up with a fully protective workaround - this is.

Now that the laughter has subsided, just think about the essential fundamentals: All you have to do is flood your facepiece volume with clean air. A fan to push it, hose to convey it and a facepiece to facilitate a sequestered volume. This does all of that, and it does so through a HEPA filter on the respirator. Once I clean the vac canister I'll install it on the fan unit. There is a hole in the wall of my shop that snugly fits the hose so when blasting outside the fan will be inside. When painting the fan will be similarly isolated in a clean air area; just where depends on where I paint which is a little bit up in the air. So now I can blast and paint with full respiratory protection and without spending a lot of dosh. It's pretty cool.

48608523026_4cdc438ce6_o.jpg

[jclay]

The supplied air system works like a charm. It's so nice to be able wear my glasses and see what I'm blasting and painting, in sharp focus rather than fuzzy. I'm using a large trash can as a blast cabinet. While this is a far cry from a real paint booth and blast cab, and takes a lot of setup time, it's a lot better than the way I was doing it in the past.

Photo is failing to upload so here's a link: Flickr