Painting In Your Garage: Advice, Pics

what he said.hey topless i thought i was the only one that never heard of a rental booth .

 

OK, one last suggestion...
Price the paint, primer, synthetic reducer, gun, respirator, and all the extra little things that you need, then go to Maaco, or Earl Schawb and get your car painted by someone who sprays 4-6 cars A DAY for less than the paint will cost you.($200 if you cut a coupon from the nickel ads)
I know that I'll catch grief from people here, but if you don't have much experience painting they will do a much better job than you will and guarantee that it won't fall off for 2 years.
Do the prep and bodywork yourself, and tell people that you painted it.

 

you are sooooooooo right about the married part,even covered washer and dryers get overspray and as for a fan you could try goin through the roof vent(those whirlygig deals maybe)because the side door is no good because your neighbors side yard will be the color of your car trust me i know!!!!!!

 

I got all the gear homes..... if ya want to paint...

ya going to billet proof NW?

give me a call

 

I'll drop my .02$ in the mix, the best is to rent a booth,and wash it down completely,blow off the crap on the inlet filters(cross draftbooth) if it's a downdraft just wash thewalls, floors and wet the exhaust filters ,also wear a paper paint suit, latex gloves,headsock and a resperator that filters organic compounds and mists (paint in your lungs and signesses is no good) if you paint it in the garage have no pilots lit anywhere near and treat the space to a 10 mil visqueen wrap ( walls,ceiling ) to make the booth. I've painted many cars in this type of setup with no problems. I would prep the cars on friday night; masked up ready to go,then paint saturday morning before 8am... most folks arn't up that early, single stage paint could be done in a hour ;2 stage took just a little longer. but a word to the wise be careful on days with no wind that the paint cloud you just pumped out of the garage is now hanging out in your neighbors yard.

 

Look everything in life carries a certain amount of risk, and painting is one of them.

And to the "you'll burn your garage down" crowd, modern paint is low VOC which means it has a much lower flamability risk then of say the old lacquers. So the risk of fire is less then adjusting a carb on a running vehicle.

Hell I bet that most of you that are concerned about it store 5 or more gallons of gasoline, or an Oxy/Acetelene setup in your garage, both something I don't do.

My buddy is a professional body man and has painted 1000's of cars in a garage and never had any problem with painting.

It is all a matter of knowing the potential problems and deciding what you find as an acceptable risk.

 

K55 is right, I sold paint for 30 years and have painted inside about everthing that would keep the rain off the car and some that didn't. I can not count the number of do it yourselfers that spent $500 dollars of hard earned money to end up with a mess in their garage, house and a car with runs everywhere and dry spots right next to them. I called on good body shops that would do all the prep work, body work, sanding and in some cases masking, then send it to a Macco. They have everything to do it right and a painter that paints many many cars every week. Just saying weigh your options before you spend a bunch of money that may make you a bigger job than you started with.
Good Luck
Don

 

i only spray primer or scallops,flames in my (very small)garage,then cover it in clear,sand it down and the final clearcoat will be in an professional paintpooth! can`t do that,because i`ve no ventlation or something..

 

Did your insurance man actually cite a clause in your policy, or did it just sound like a bad idea to him so he said no? It should be covered as long as you're just painting your own stuff, not a commerical operation. From a risk standpoint it's no more dangerous than a lot of wood refinishing processes. Either way, you're probably screwed now that you asked.

Add me to the list of people that have never heard of booth rental. Must be a socal thing.

 

Paint in the morning, hang a lot of fly strips. Works good!

 

I did this and used the blue fans like they use to dry carpet withe the snout on the end.....they move a lot of air and you can close the door down to about 4 inches. tape a couple of filters to each side.

 

I'm sorry, Did you say something?

 

Can't remember.
What were we talkin about again?

By the way.. nice roadster in your avatar. That thing one of those rattyrod thingies?
Danged ol' whipper-snapper these days.

 

Modern paint is lower VOC than the old stuff. But please dont go around making people think it is low flammability. Anything hydrocarbon based has a similar heat release rate as far as BTU's per puond. The flash point is still low enough that when you suspend it in the air in a mist form the surface to mass ratio is so low that the heat of ignition is minimal. If you get near the lower explosive limit... bad things happen. Your best friend is ventilation as this will keep you from reaching the lower explosive limit. Honestly to all the folks worried about pilot lights, etc you have credible ignition sources everywhere else in your garage from the light switches to the lights, compressor motors, etc. But yeah, turn them off anyway. If we want to be REALLY picky about this stuff only rent a booth that is outfitted with class 1 division 1 explosion proof electrical equipment.

Exactly. But years of experience in the fire protection engineering/risk management field and many COMMERCIAL paint booth fire investigations have taught me that when people make decisions with bad information bad things happen.<!-- / message -->

 

I would be inclined to agree with you on this one. I downloaded a sample HO-3 policy (85% of homeowners have this form) here: http://server.iii.org/yy_obj_data/binary/748905_1_0/HO3_sample.pdf

and a review of the policy showed me nothing that could exclude them from paying you from a related loss. Now they probably wont pay for the car, and that is in the policy. But your house etc should be covered. This is no substitute for reading YOUR policy as that is your contract with your insurer. I would have your agent recite the policy statement that prohibits you from painting a car in your garage.

 

I agree, but try telling that to my wife

Maybe I have lame homo-ners insurance, but they said a garage is "only for storing a vehicle" and "any other activity would be considered outside the scope of coverage". Stupid CYA policy.

I work with a guy who rented a booth here in Portland. He painted his Bavarian 2002, and said it was a legit outfit. I'm going to check it out. Whatever I do I'll update with some pics.

 

Most important lesson I learned was keep your cat in the house . Mine walked across the roof just as I finished painting it . I left the pawprints in , it looked kinda cool .

 

I don't remember>

 

maybe that could be an add on to the booth rental...custom cat paw graphics. You could rent the cat out.

 

Good idea. I'll do that just to be sure, and/or have them fax me a copy just in case it's BS.