AIRBRUSH SPRAY BOOTH Home made spray booth step by step by Jeff Simon


If you airbrush in your home as I do a spray booth can be a very handy accessory. I came to this conclusion after doing some repair work on a goalie helmet I was prepping for paint. It was a used helmet and needed some sanding and filling. I use Bondo or a polyester glazing compound to fill any chips or cracks in the fiberglass and this stuff really stinks. I got complaints from my family that I was smelling up the entire house. After seeing that table top sized spray booths cost a couple of hun- dred bucks I came up with this quick, cheap solution. This booth uses a bathroom exhaust fan which is not explosion proof and should not be used with solvent based paints. Since I use all water based paints, this was not a problem.


The first thing I did was go to Walmart to find the largest clear plastic storage con- tainer they had. I wanted clear plastic so I could shine lights through it. I figured an opaque, plastic container would be very dark inside and I would have to rig up spe- cial lighting. The largest storage clear container I found was about 32”x19”x14”. I really wanted something a bit bigger, but this was the largest I could find that was a clear plastic.


I got the bathroom fan for free from my brother-in-law. He has a demolition busi- ness and rips out old kitchens and bathrooms for carpenters and contractors. I tested the fan and it worked fine, so I proceeded to clean it up as it was quite dirty. Then I removed the guts from the metal box that holds the fan. It’s only held in by three screws, so that was easy. I placed the box in the lower corner of the plastic container and traced around it with a sharpie marker. This fan box had a lip around it for mounting, so I made sure I cut the opening just large enough for the box to slide through the cut out, but small enough that the flange would sit on the surface of the plastic container. I used a utility knife to cut this opening. After a little trial and error, I got the fan box to fit pretty well.


Now this plastic container is rather flimsy and I didn’t think it was strong enough to support the fan, so I cut strips of ¼” thick masonite to support the fan and act as stiffeners to strengthen the plastic container. I cut the masonite strips to the appropriate lengths and did a dry run to make sure they fit in place and could slide under the lip of the fan to support it. Once everything was fit, I used a hot glue gun to attach the masonite strips to the container. I applied the hot glue to the strips quickly and slid them in place, making sure they slid under the flange of the fan to support it. Then I used more hot glue to seal around the edges of the masonite strips and around the fan box. This helps hold everything in place better and seals up any potential air leaks.


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