An excellent example of recycling!

That's basically it - it looks a lot more convenient than what I first took it as, a tissue paper box.

Great Idea

We are innovators in this hobby.  Model Railroaders have been recycling long before the idea hit the rest of the world.  I'm glad they paid attention to our efforts.  We set good examples and waste nothing in our ventures.

Yaaaaah us.

G. T.

Now all you need is a small lazy susan to put in there.

I know there are some small ones around.  You could probably make one to fit the box out of a paper plate inverted.

Den

and...

a bendy straw for ventilation 

Lazy Susan

I thought about that too, Den.  I think the simple thing would be to poke a hole in the bottom of the box and mount the part on a bamboo skewer.  Put the skewer in the hole and rotate it while painting, as needed.

Lazy Susan

Ken

Good recycling effort.  An old CD mounted on your skewer would make a good turntable.  I've been using old shipping boxes like this for larger things.  Keep on tracking.

I'm confused

I have never had a spray booth (my current 'booth' bears a striking resemblance to an old speaker stand in my garage). But I see all this information about filters, proper air draw, ventilation, etc. And all this time all I really needed to get the job done was just a cardboard box??? I've not seen any backlash on the box. What gives?

Jim

No backlash

I think it's because most of us use about the same idea as a spray booth . All the videos show and tell you to use a well ventilated area but honestly how many of us do . Even if i had a spray booth i don't have any place to vent it to . The last time i used a booth i was still painting 1:1 cars and trucks { and enamel paints weren't around yet } . So let the backlash begin !  

             Jim Ross

Respirator

If you do use one of these beauties, invest in a good respirator. You don't want to learn the way I did how necessary they are. A good hardware shop will have a selection ranging from household dust to full CBR. Something in the midrange is rated for paint.

pqe

Booth

The booth would be fine for acrylics as long as you are careful about where the overspray goes.  Lacquers, enamels and other solvent-based exotic still need a system to vent nasty fumes.

Backlash

Well, not backlash from me, but some of the common "disadvantages" of not using a purpose-built spray booth I've seen around the web are as follows:

* One of the purposes of a ventilated spray booth is to create airflow to pull the paint across the model, and out the back. Without this airflow, if you're just spraying into a closed cardboard box (for example) you're basically creating a cloud of paint in the box and risk having a bunch of overspray collect on your model. The airflow helps pull all the extra paint particles out of the way and keep the newly-painted surface clean.

Much of the "backlash" about ventilation, filters, etc, has to do with ventilated spray booths. Not an issue for a simple cardboard box, but if you are hoping to save money by building your own bona-fide spray booth, you need a way to provide that forced ventilation:

* For a home-made ventilated booth, there's much discussion and disagreement about what kind of fan/motor to use. "Backlashers" will insist that any motor that's going to be in the airstream must be sealed (and explosion proof?). This is because sparks from an unsealed motor CAN ingite the flammable paint particles passing through the motor. This is obviously a problem for solvent based paints, but acrylic paints are not necessarily completely safe, either. Turning your home-made booth into a fireball is admittedly very rare, and you'll find plenty of anecdotal evidence on the web of people testifying they use an unsealed motor all the time and have never had a problem. Better safe than sorry, the Backlashers will say. Fine, the DIY-ers will say, use a kitchen-grade ventilation fan, which is designed to be used in a place where grease particles are flying around (i.e. a kitchen range). If it's safe for kitchen use, it must be safe for atomized paint particles. Not good enough, the Backlashers will say. Comparing the flammability of solvent-based paint to that of kitchen grease is like apples and oranges. Usually, the best kind of motor for this application is said to be a "squirrel cage" type fan because the motor is outside the airflow.

* Furthermore, the fan should be able to move a certain volume of air per minute. Some math is required to figure the size of the booth and account for ductwork, filter(s), and other "losses". Once you know what size fan motor to use, and factoring in the flammability considerations above, shop around and you'll see that these fan/motors are kind of expensive, and you won't save that much $ by DIY. Might as well just buy the purpose-built spray booth and avoid the hassle.

Again, I'm a neutral party in this discussion, but I guess I'd lean more towards the "better safe than sorry" side. Personally, I use an ordinary cardboard moving box right now, and it seems to work OK. I'm concerned about and mindful of the overspray issue, but haven't noticed too much of a problem with it. If I had the disposable cash, I'd definitely buy a purpose-made spray booth, though... But I'd be tempted to use that money to buy a new sound-equipped locomotive instead

Regardless of what you use, properly ventilated or not, it's always a good idea to wear a good quality respirator while spray painting or airbrushing. That goes for solvent-based as well as acrylic-based paints. Acrylic paints may not have the harmful chemical fumes, but you're better off not getting those tiny paint particles in your lungs.

...

Use the CD turntable from a junk laptop, with a junk CD mounted to it...perfect lazy susan!