After weeks playing with my airbrush my hobby room was starting to take on the feel of a long abandoned building the overspray dust getting everywhere a lesson learnt the hard way. After a clean up and a bit of research I was shocked to find the cost of a spray booth was upwards of £60 a sum of money I simply haven't got.
I've had to get my thinking cap on and with some salvaged bits and pieces and a clearance lot on EBay I solved my problem for less than half the price of normal. As I only really spray non toxic acrylics I didn't need a sealed fumes filter just something to contain the overspray dust which is where I started with a cooker hood complete with attachment accessories. It was very easy to attach sides to it and fit to my desk and you could utilise any timber for the job, I was just lucky to have a couple of pieces of thick acrylic sheet screaming out for the part. The basic unit gives you three fan speeds and a working light to illuminate what you are working on., All I needed now was a dust trap.
Now here's my top tip never throw stuff away , keep it for a while as all sorts of stuff can be made from stuff you would throw out. I found that the air hose fittings from the hood fit perfectly into an old fashioned sweet jar giving a tight seal. I cut the end off of the jar and capped the end with the mesh from an old broken tennis bat bug zapper before filling it with layers of coarse to fine aquarium filter foam. Once all the glues had dried and the foams cut to shape I simply gave it a rough sanding to give the paint a key and sprayed it silver once again using a part can of car spray paint...........
I hope you can see from the photos that it doesn't look too bad giving me an excellent level of dust catching on top. Another finished project I nearly forgot to mention in the excitement of getting something completed.
I've had to get my thinking cap on and with some salvaged bits and pieces and a clearance lot on EBay I solved my problem for less than half the price of normal. As I only really spray non toxic acrylics I didn't need a sealed fumes filter just something to contain the overspray dust which is where I started with a cooker hood complete with attachment accessories. It was very easy to attach sides to it and fit to my desk and you could utilise any timber for the job, I was just lucky to have a couple of pieces of thick acrylic sheet screaming out for the part. The basic unit gives you three fan speeds and a working light to illuminate what you are working on., All I needed now was a dust trap.
Now here's my top tip never throw stuff away , keep it for a while as all sorts of stuff can be made from stuff you would throw out. I found that the air hose fittings from the hood fit perfectly into an old fashioned sweet jar giving a tight seal. I cut the end off of the jar and capped the end with the mesh from an old broken tennis bat bug zapper before filling it with layers of coarse to fine aquarium filter foam. Once all the glues had dried and the foams cut to shape I simply gave it a rough sanding to give the paint a key and sprayed it silver once again using a part can of car spray paint...........
I hope you can see from the photos that it doesn't look too bad giving me an excellent level of dust catching on top. Another finished project I nearly forgot to mention in the excitement of getting something completed.