Winter airbrushing

[Ray H]

The colder days are all but on us and I don't do cold so only venture out when I need to. It's a good excuse not to do any gardening as well!

 

I really need to get down to experimenting with my new airbrush and don't want to have to wait until next summer (or does the unconfident me actually want to?) to do so outside so I have to face the prospect of using the airbrush "indoors".

 

That may not be as bad as it seems because that means the garage which is effectively an integral part of the house. However, the up & over door has long since been sealed so the only way in and out is through the house. We don't always fully close the door between garage and house when it isn't in use (even though I would if I were using the airbrush therein).

 

I'm aware of the fume style risks associated with airbrushing and have bought a spray booth. I also have a large ceiling mounted air filter in the garage, a remnant from days when I had a passing interest in woodturning and such like.

 

Experience has taught me not to use the aerosol style paints anywhere indoors or with several feet of an open door or window mainly because of the smell that seems to linger for days and seems to creep all round the house.

 

My attempts with the use of acrylic paints to minimise the smell but haven't been too successful so I want to try enamels.

 

These are oil based but are they similar to the gloss paints used in domestic decorating?

 

Is there likely to be a problem with smell when airbrushing enamels in what is an extension of the house?

[AngryMeerkat]

Without any kind of filtration the answer is yes, the smell of enamel paints through an airbrush will get through the house and smell very bad.

 

But you say you've got a spray booth, which will minimise or indeed completely remove any smell created as long as your extraction hose is routed to the outside of the property. I use a home-made spray booth in the man-cave which is the second bedroom of our bungalow, and during use their is absolutely no smell released into the rest of the house.

 

Another thing to think about when using an airbrush in winter is the thinning ratios of the paints used. If the garage is cold, or colder than the rest of the house, you will usually need to add less thinners but finding this balance requires practice.

 

Mark

[Ray H]

Thanks Mark

 

Unfortunately there's no easy way to vent the booth to the outside. However, I could put the end of the extraction hose hard up against the air filter on the ceiling to act as a second level of filtration. The ceiling filter effectively only recycles/filters air within the garage it does not extract to outside.

 

That said, I suppose I could cut a hole in the garage ceiling and vent the booth into the loft void that isn't as air tight as the rest of the garage. That might be an option to try as we only use the loft space for storing tat that really should be thrown out and this may be the excuse to do just that.

 

The garage itself is brick construction, has our house against one wall, our neighbour's garage adjoining on the other side, a pitched roof over with loft space above the insulated garage ceiling and is at the back of our utility room. It also has a radiator off the domestic heating system so warmth isn't an issue thankfully.

 

The only semi-practical way to vent completely externally is to run the hose through the utility room (which means leaving the garage door into the house partly open) and out through either the open back door or adjacent window like some people do with the extraction from their tumble dryers.

 

Now there's a thought. We have one of those dryers and that is vented outside through a hole in the outer wall. I wonder if I could try to connect to that somehow (recognising that I'd also need to disconnect the dryer or have clothes smelling of paint!)?

[Guest Centurion]

I assume the spry booth you bought has a hose attached? I find this simply dangled out of a window is sufficient to extract the honk. Also, not sure if I can explain this, airbrushing makes much less fumes than say spraying with an aerosol. The spry is much much finer and much easier to control and find that airbrushing doesn't really contaminate an area in the same way as a spray can.

[Ray H]

. . . airbrushing makes much less fumes than say spraying with an aerosol. The spray is much much finer and much easier to control and [i?] find that airbrushing doesn't really contaminate an area in the same way as a spray can.

That's what I thought/hoped but Mark (AngryMeerkat) seems to suggest otherwise.

[TheWeatheringMan]

Thanks Mark

 

Unfortunately there's no easy way to vent the booth to the outside. However, I could put the end of the extraction hose hard up against the air filter on the ceiling to act as a second level of filtration. The ceiling filter effectively only recycles/filters air within the garage it does not extract to outside.

 

That said, I suppose I could cut a hole in the garage ceiling and vent the booth into the loft void lthat isn't as air tight as the rest of the garage. That might be an option to try as we only use the loft space for storing tat that really should be thrown out and this may be the excuse to do just that.

 

The garage itself is brick construction, has our house against one wall, our neighbour's garage adjoining on the other side, a pitched roof over with loft space above the insulated garage ceiling and is at the back of our utility room. It also has a radiator off the domestic heating system so warmth isn't an issue thankfully.

 

The only semi-practical way to vent completely externally is to run the hose through the utility room (which means leaving the garage door into the house partly open) and out through either the open back door or adjacent window like some people do with the extraction from their tumble dryers.

 

Now there's a thought. We have one of those dryers and that is vented outside through a hole in the outer wall. I wonder if I could try to connect to that somehow (recognising that I'd also need to disconnect the dryer or have clothes smelling of paint!)?

Hi,

Whatever you do DO NOT vent the spraybooth through the ceiling into the loft space.

If you are using enamel paints you will be thinning them with a flamable solvent.

What you risk doing is filling the loft area with an explosive mixture (even though the loft may have some natural ventilation) and the risks thereby posed from electric wiring, lights etc is high.

As advised by others you need to vent to the outside both for efficiency and safety.

using the tumble dryer pipe is probably not a good idea either as solvent could condense in the 'rings' of the pipe and then pose a fire risk either through 'back feeding' as vapour to the dryer heating element while not working or from the hot air passing through the pipe when working.

Just one idea - could you not cut a hole through the sealed garage door and vent via that ?.

Regards

[Ray H]

Thanks for the comments about using the loft, that was not something that I'd thought of.

 

Unfortunately the metal up and over door is buried behind a wooden panel full of insulation. I could get to the door but think the dents (that I made unintentionally with the car) in the door look bad enough. I don't really want to have to cut a hole in it as well.

 

I think I'll have to bite the bullet, so to speak, and run the hose outside through the utility room and leave the door/window open. SWMBO is always complaining that I don't like having windows open so that might keep her quiet for a while! At least I can shut the door between the utility room and the kitchen to keep the rest of the house reasonably warm and I may be able to make some kind of wooden barrier to fit in the jam of the garage door so that I can all but close that to stop the fumes escaping that way.