Model Paint Safety Information

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turboF1
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Re: Model Paint Safety Information

Post by turboF1 »

Hi Noddy,

Thanks for your responses. I listen and read and learn and decide not to use 2K anymore. It's just not worth the risks and there are excellent alternatives that are safer.

Leftkeys
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Re: Model Paint Safety Information

Post by Leftkeys »

This is incredibly useful. Thanks. I’ve been aware, but not completely. Question for you guys. I went out an bought a paint booth. I live in a “retirement” house and have limited space for working on my projects. The paint booth is in the garage with no way to extract the exhaust thru a window. But when I do paint, the garage door is open, cars are in the driveway and it is well ventilated. The booth’s exhaust is deflected vertically. I’ve upgraded my masks. I don’t use 2K clear, just tamiya, all clad and zero paints (the ones that are body color matched). Sufficient?
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MoFo
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Re: Model Paint Safety Information

Post by MoFo »

Leftkeys wrote:the garage door is open, cars are in the driveway and it is well ventilated. The booth’s exhaust is deflected vertically.
First and foremost, I'd say that cars in the driveway is a problem. Paint particles can really travel, so you should move your cars as far away as possible to avoid picking up overspray. I would also leave them out of the garage for a few hours after painting, to make sure all the paint is out of the air.

Secondly, I'd probably look at running the exhaust to the door. Vent it out the side, with a length of conduit to get it closer to the door. You could try a flexible conduit, so you can vent the exhaust out the door when you need to paint, then move it out of the way when you're done. Although flexible conduits have pretty terrible airflow, so your paint booth may not be able to handle it.

That being said, if you're using a good mask, and your spray booth is filtered, and you're leaving the area after you've finished painting, you should be fairly good. If you do your painting, then take the mask off and hang around in the garage while you can still smell paint, that's not good.
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Noddy
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Re: Model Paint Safety Information

Post by Noddy »

Leftkeys wrote:This is incredibly useful. Thanks. I’ve been aware, but not completely. Question for you guys. I went out an bought a paint booth. I live in a “retirement” house and have limited space for working on my projects. The paint booth is in the garage with no way to extract the exhaust thru a window. But when I do paint, the garage door is open, cars are in the driveway and it is well ventilated. The booth’s exhaust is deflected vertically. I’ve upgraded my masks. I don’t use 2K clear, just tamiya, all clad and zero paints (the ones that are body color matched). Sufficient?
I agree with MoFo - try to duct the vent to the outside somehow if at all possible - even a dryer vent hose is better than it accumulating inside the garage.
In my own home I've had tremendous trouble with the garage and airflow into the house. It was so bad that if I sprayed even a small amount of penetrating oil on a bolt in the garage my wife could smell it in the house hours later. For a couple of years I had plastic sheeting taped and stapled over the door from the garage into the house - and that was very inconvenient - so eventually I broke down and removed the molding around the inside door - and discovered that the builder had covered huge gaps in the wallboard with the molding and there was no insulation or sealer there at all - so it is no wonder that fumes passed freely into the house! Grrrr....
I used torn-up pieces of fibreglass insulation to fill the gaps and some spray foam insulation as well, put the molding back and sealed the cracks with silicone caulking. Much improved but I'm still not about to spray 2K paints without it venting to the outside. I also set up large fans blowing out of the garage when any painting is done.
As for the cars in the drive - overspray travels and it dries as it goes - so you end up with a gritty mess everywhere it lands.

Leftkeys
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Re: Model Paint Safety Information

Post by Leftkeys »

Thank you, gents. I appreciate the advice and the alert on this issue in the first place. A little extra effort is an easy call.
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