spray booth Archives : Paint-Booths.com

Introduction to Paint Booth Types: Side Downdraft Paint Booths

In this series, we’ll look at some of the most common types of paint spray booths and their functions and benefits. This month’s spotlight is on side downdraft paint booths.

What is a side downdraft paint booth?

A side downdraft paint booth is similar to a downdraft booth, but the airflow moves the air down and to the lower sides of the booth rather than straight down toward the floor. A side downdraft paint booth doesn’t need a floor pit because it exhausts air through the side walls.

Side downdraft models are available in many different sizes, from a model that is 23’ long for smaller shops to a much larger 60’ booth, designed to fit big trucks. Standard Tools and Equipment can customize the booth to be as long as desired. This model is a popular model to order with an air makeup unit for a heated booth option.

How does a side downdraft paint booth work?

In a side downdraft paint booth, air comes in through the front ceiling. Most models have a double set of filters at the air intake point. This filtered air moves down and toward the sides of the booth where it’s exhausted through a set of floor-level filters along both sides of the booth.

The airflow pattern of a side downdraft booth pulls air away from the center of the booth, helping to draw contaminants and overspray away from the item being painted or finished. This setup makes painting easier and improves the quality of the finish.

Benefits of a side downdraft paint booth

Side downdraft booths offer several advantages:

No need for an expensive concrete pit
Good control of contaminants and overspray
Excellent finish quality (similar to a downdraft booth)
Filtered intake air
No “dead zones” like those in a semi downdraft booth

A side downdraft paint booth offers many advantages, making it an excellent choice for a wide range of applications. However, side downdraft booths require a lot of exhaust ductwork and multiple fans, so they tend to be more expensive than other styles.

Top uses for a side downdraft paint booth

Side downdraft paint booths facilitate excellent finish quality, making them ideal for top-tier projects:

Automotive finishing/refinishing
Large truck finishing
Large equipment production
Industrial manufacturing of precision equipment

A side downdraft booth is a good option for shops that produce large, high-quality items but can’t support a floor pit for a downdraft booth.

Optimize Production With a High-Quality Paint Booth

If you want to ensure your products receive a top-notch finish free of blemishes, a side downdraft paint booth is an excellent choice. It offers a downward airflow pattern that controls contaminants and overspray but doesn’t require a floor pit. Side downdraft booths are also easily installed with a Sure-Cure air makeup unit to increase production with a heated cure cycle.

No matter what kind of paint booth you need, we can help. We carry a wide selection of paint spray booths in various styles and sizes. From a heated side downdraft paint booth to a cross flow paint booth, our selection has options for every project. We can even customize a booth for your unique needs. To get started, contact our team directly, email sales@paint-booths.com, or call 888-312-7488.

Introduction to Paint Booth Types: Open-Face Paint Booths

In this series, we’ll look at some of the most common types of paint spray booths and their functions and benefits. This month’s spotlight is on open-face paint booths.

What is an open-face paint booth?

While many paint booths are designed as full enclosures, an open-face booth is different. As the name implies, this type of spray booth includes a ceiling, two side walls, and a back wall, but the front is completely open (no doors). Usually, the exhaust filter system is housed in the back wall.

Open-face paint booths are the most versatile booth type of them all and come in a variety of sizes. They are also easily customizable from our engineers. The small models start at just 2’ wide and deep, designed to accommodate small products. In fact, a benchtop booth is essentially a small open-face spray booth with a working table top.

However, you can also purchase much larger models that can accommodate big items and complicated painting rigs. For example, you could choose an open-face paint booth with an interior that’s 20 feet wide and 7 feet deep. Some popular products that are being sprayed in an open-face paint booth from Standard Tools include helium tanks, metal trash cans, Hollywood props, cabinets, and a variety of furniture pieces.

A custom open-face booth that we designed is a dual-sided open-faced booth. This is a design that has two painting areas that share an exhaust plenum. We design every paint booth to fit the need and the footprint.

How an open-face paint booth works

In an open-face paint booth, air is pulled into the booth through the open front. It flows horizontally over the product toward the exhaust in the back wall. When the air is drawn into the booth through the open front, it’s not filtered before entering the booth. It is important this booth is used in a clean shop so that the paint isn’t easily contaminated. However, this design allows air to move through the booth very quickly, which facilitates fast and efficient removal of toxic fumes, debris, and other contaminants from the work area.

Top benefits of an open-face booth

Affordable and simple to install
Easy access for items of all sizes
Efficient control and removal of overspray and contaminants
Useful in a variety of applications
Can be installed almost anywhere (Inside).

An open-face paint booth offers many benefits that make it an excellent choice for a wide range of applications.

What are open-face paint booths used for?

Open-face paint booths are used for a wide variety of things. They are very popular in the furniture and woodworking industries. Here are some other common uses for an open-face paint booth:

Painting/finishing products, parts, and equipment
Sanding
Adhesive application
Welding
Minor automotive repair/repainting jobs
Prepping products before they are finished in an enclosed booth

These booths are not compatible with an Air Makeup Unit directly into the booth. However, we can provide information on adding a Makeup Air unit to your shop to compensate for the air being exhausted.

If you are doing extremely detailed custom work that must be flawless, a fully enclosed paint booth would be a better choice. For many applications, however, an open-face booth is an affordable addition any shop that will significantly improve productivity.

Get a Versatile Open-Face Paint Booth for Your Shop

If you want to create a space in your shop that can be used for anything from sanding to painting, an open-face paint booth is an excellent choice. This type of booth can be installed pretty much anywhere (it does need to be inside so it is not exposed to the elements and needs to be exhausted out through the roof).

Adding a paint spray booth to your shop can significantly increase productivity and create a safer environment for your employees. At Standard Tools and Equipment Co., we manufacturer a wide range of spray booth styles and can completely customize a paint booth to fit every need and footprint. To connect directly with our expert team, give us a call at 888-312-7488.

Upgrade Your Shop with a Paint Mixing Room

Whether your shop is dedicated to painting automobiles, creating furniture, or finishing cabinets, having the right equipment makes all the difference. Even if you already have a spray booth for finishing your products, you may want to consider installing a paint mixing booth. Investing in a dedicated paint mixing room can significantly improve the safety and productivity of your shop.

Benefits of a Paint Mixing Room

Mixing and storing paint and finishing products on an industrial scale requires planning and preparation. With a dedicated paint mixing room, you can increase the efficiency of your workflow and bring your shop into compliance with safety standards and local codes.

Safety

One of the most important benefits of a paint mixing room is an improvement in your shop’s safety conditions. Most finishing products, including paint, varnish, and solvents, are extremely flammable. It’s essential to keep these chemicals away from heat sources, which is far easier when you have a dedicated room in which to mix and store them.

Productivity

You can greatly increase the productivity of your operation by installing a paint mixing room. It gives you a secure, separate space in which to organize and store all your finishing products and mixing equipment. Having everything in one place can eliminate the need to find and set up equipment every time you want to use it. It’s far easier to deploy spill containment measures in a dedicated space.

Code Compliance

It’s essential to make sure your operation complies with safety and building codes. Installing a mixing booth can make it easier to ensure you are following all relevant legal requirements. Both the National Fire Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have regulations that apply to mixing and storing paint and chemicals. Paint mixing booths are designed around these requirements, so installing one in your shop is a simple way to establish compliance with essential codes.

Reduce Contaminants

A mixing booth allows you to mix and store finishing products in an isolated environment where you can filter the air, significantly reducing dirt and other foreign matter. Lowering the amount of dust and debris in the preparation area helps ensure your finishing products are free from contaminants that can damage the final quality of the finish.

Air Quality

Primer, paint, lacquer, and other products used in the finishing process can release toxic fumes that can damage indoor air quality and present a risk to shop personnel. A paint mixing room has built-in ventilation, which can help reduce dangerous particulates in the air, improving the shop’s working environment.

Paint Mixing Booth Design

A mixing booth is exactly what it sounds like: a stand-alone booth set aside for preparing and storing paint and finishing products. There are several key features to look for when choosing a paint mixing booth:

Heavy-duty wall panels
A secure door
Appropriate exhaust and ventilation components
A proper air intake filter
Excellent lighting
Code-compliant fire protection measures
Easy control panel for light operation

In many cases, paint mixing booths are designed for DIY assembly. It’s essential to choose a booth that comes with clear, easy-to-follow assembly instructions.

Paint Mixing Booths and Code Regulations

A mixing booth is subject to vital safety codes, most of which are based on NFPA requirements and/or OSHA guidelines for different aspects of the design:

Safe storage for paint/flammable liquids (the allowable quantity is based on the distance between the mixing room and the spray booth)
Automatic fire protection system
Continuously operating ventilation fan providing adequate air movement
Appropriate size dimensions
Effective spill containment
ETL-certified electrical components

It’s vital to choose a mixing booth that complies with these federal codes as well as any local safety regulations that exist in your area.

Getting Maximum Value Out of Your Paint Mixing Booth

A paint mixing booth is an excellent addition to your shop, making it easier and safer to organize, mix, and store your finishing products. When you are choosing a mixing booth, make sure to find one that fits well in your shop and complies with all applicable safety codes.

We make it easy for you to get the right mixing booth. Our mixing booths come in three standard sizes, but we can also create a customized booth for you in any size up to 150 sq. ft. All of our mixing booths are compliant with NFPA and OSHA standards, and they’re also ETL-certified. We design our booths for easy assembly and offer flexible placement options for the door, light, and fan. Our production is fast, so you can get your booth up and running in just days. When you’re ready to enhance your shop with a dedicated paint mixing booth, we are here to help. Contact our team for answers to your questions or details on our customization options.

Please Don’t Crate My Paint Booth.

When you order a paint booth from Standard Tools and Equipment, it’s important that the booth gets to you in great condition. With our booths being shipped, using a third-party provider, it can be transferred from terminal to terminal until it reaches your door. Once it’s out of our hands, it’s hard to know what can happen along the way. This is why we take extra measures to ensure your booth gets to you safely and in great condition.

The most important step in preparing a booth for shipment is to create a crate for it to ship in. Have you ever stopped to think what can happen if your products are shipped without protection? Crating helps pieces remain together and provides protection from damage. It protects small parts from being misplaced and/or glass from breaking while in transit.

Loading our crates is a specialty that our loaders have down pat. Like a puzzle, they load them in tight to prevent shifting. Crating is vital in this industry and any company that will ship your booth to you un-packaged is risking your booth’s quality. Crating should not be an option, and at Standard Tools… we hope you understand why it’s not an option, it’s the only way we’ll ship your paint booth to you.

When you order a powder-coated paint booth, we actually wrap each individual panel to protect it’s finish from scrapes and scratches.

So, now you know, when you see that “crating” charge on your quote… it’s to ensure that your booth arrives undamaged. If it’s damaged in transit…. make sure that you let us know as soon as possible so we can walk you through the process of filing a claim with the shipping company. (888-312-7488).

Here are some photos of a booth that is not crated and the damage it causes. This is why it’s not optional, and shouldn’t be optional from any manufacturer.

Paint Booth Installation Video

YES, you can INSTALL your own paint booth! They are designed to be easy to install by the end user, saving you thousands. We made a paint booth installation video to show you how.

Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

Powder coating is the fastest growing finishing technology in North America, representing over 10% of all industrial finishing applications. So what is a Powder Coated Finish?

Have you ever seen a really shiny and clean metal piece and wondered what type of paint it was? It was probably a powder coated finish, which is an advanced method of applying a protective finish to practically any type of metal. It’s a sprayed powder that is a mixture of finely ground particles of pigment and resin. Once sprayed, the item is ‘baked’ at a very high temperature to cure the smooth finish and leave it with a sleek and durable ‘skin’. Here’s an old filing cabinet that we powder coated yellow.

Powder Coated Finish: The Powder Coating process provides one of the most economical, longest lasting, and most color-durable finishes available for metal. Powder coated surfaces are more resistant to weather, chipping, scratching, fading, and wearing than other finishes. Powder coatings produce no drips, runs or sags. Edge coverage and coverage inside holes and nooks is exceptional. See the process from our Powder Coating production on this new blog. Continue reading Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

MANIFOLDING SPRAY BOOTH DUCTWORK AND IMPROPER AIRFLOW

In this photo, an installer has chosen to manifold three spray booth exhaust duct runs. (A manifold is a pipe or chamber branching into several openings.)

This layout probably looked great on paper and reduced the number of roof penetrations from three to just one.

Reality is such as nasty teacher. The static pressure (resistance to the flow of air) was greater in the top portion of the ductwork than in the spray booths. The ductwork downstream from the manifold point (above the joints) should be much larger than what is in the photo. The air ventilated out of one booth actually flows into its neighbor.

Our booths are designed to meet specific airflow needs and we design them with ductwork. The spray booths in the photo were designed to have individual exhaust ductwork runs; they were not installed according to the design or instructions provided by Standard Tools.

Manifolding of exhaust ductwork is allowed by NFPA-33 only if devices exist in the ductwork that detect improper airflow. The static pressure within the spray booth will change as the overspray builds up in the exhaust filters and as the obstruction within the booth changes (based on size and shape of parts in the spray booth). This can be very technical and overly-complex. The simple rule, and what Standard Tools recommends, is no manifolding of exhaust ductwork. Keeping ductwork simple is the least expensive and best performing strategy in the long run. We suggest that you install your booth, and your ductwork, according to our recommendations to ensure proper airflow within your booth.

Baby Its Cold Outside!! — Air Makeup Units

A favorite song of the winter holidays is ‘Baby, Its Cold Outside’. The crooners of the 1960s like Dean Martin, Andy Williams and Ann-Margret make this a fun song to hear. The fellow in this song reminds his girl of all of the problems of a cold winter night as she keeps trying to talk herself into leaving.

As we are bracing for this “Arctic Blast” about to hit us on the East Coast, we’re thinking of all those painters that have to open the building doors when the spray booth is used … and Baby, Its Cold Inside Too!!

At Standard Tools, we make heated air makeup units that can be added to your current system. Spray booths with intake plenums (or intake canopies) can be directly ducted to our Sure-Cure AMU system. Cross-flow or open-face booths can be supplied with Sure-Cure AMU systems designed to put heated air right into the building.

The Sure-Cure direct-gas-fired units can be heated with liquid propane or natural gas.
The units are ETL-listed to USA and Canadian safety standards and are designed to provide tempered air (for spraying) and up to 160-F for curing.
When ordering your unit, there are many options about power, layout and orientation.
Systems are available from 10,000 cfm to 26,000 cfm.
We offer ducting components and wiring harnesses.

The best part is that your unit can be built to your specifications and ready to ship to your facility in just a few weeks.

Stop opening the building doors to bring in the freezing air. OSHA requires a permanent spray area to be at least 65-F. Most coatings do not work well at colder temperatures, which can lead to poor quality and poor productivity.

Visit our website or call our Sales team for more information.

DO YOU NEED THE ETL LISTING FOR YOUR SPRAY BOOTH?

Standard Tools and Equipment Co designs and manufacturers spray booths and mixing rooms to comply with NFPA-33, the top-level safety code in the USA for spray application of flammable or combustible materials. We are in compliance with these codes, which means that as the supplier, we feel that we meet the code. Being compliant is not always enough, as some authorities require certification by a third-party to confirm compliance. That’s where Intertek/ETL comes in. As a nationally recognized third-party certification organization, they have tested and certified our most popular spray booth and mixing room models.

We offer an upgrade package on our most popular spray booths and mixing rooms. This package includes our ETL-listed electrical control panel, an air valve solenoid to interlock the fan motor and spray equipment and the ETL label for the booth.

So, do you need the ETL listing?

Maybe, if the spray booth is to be located in a large city
Probably, if the spray booth is to be located in NY, MA, CT, RI, MN, CA, OR or WA
Probably, if the spray booth is part of a government facility like a school or a military base
Definitely, if the spray booth is located in New York City or any of its boroughs
Definitely, if your local authority says that it is required – You should contact your local fire and building authority as early as possible in the process of buying a new spray booth

How can you acquire the ETL listing?

Buy it with the spray booth. Standard Tools is allowed by Intertek/ETL to apply the certification mark to the booth only prior to the spray booth shipping from our dock.
If the booth is already installed, you can contact our engineering team and we will provide contact information for Intertek. Intertek will have to visit your shop to inspect the spray booth and apply the certification mark. On-site certification is usually three to ten times more expensive than buying the ETL mark with the spray booth. Other on-site certifiers are UL and MET.

A little paint booth business mixed with pleasure in Williams, Arizona

Actually it was “business” by accident, or by fate, however you wish to look at it. Not really business, as I wasn’t selling anything.

I have been with Standard Tools and Equipment Company for over 22 years now. It is a blurred line between business and passion… as my business is my passion. Working and traveling with the company over the years has been fun and I have had the privilege to see places I probably never would have on my own. I had never really spent any time out west, other than some trade shows in Vegas. So, when my son was chosen as a summer intern at a camp in Williams, Arizona, it gave me the perfect excuse to “Go West” with my wife for vacation this year.

The city of Williams, Arizona is known as “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon”. It is a small town on the Historic Route 66, only 2-1/2 hour drive from Phoenix. Williams was the last town on Historic Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40. The community, bypassed on Oct. 13, 1984, continues to thrive on tourism. The Historic Downtown District covers six square blocks and boasts a rich heritage that features the Old West and Route 66 coupled with tourism trends today and the town’s heyday years of the ’50s and ’60s.

On our first day in Williams, we decided to go for a walk through town. We were walking down Main Street (Route 66) and we passed Custom Designs Autobody. The big garage door was wide open… I couldn’t help myself. I peeked my head inside to see the equipment they were using (as we say in NC, you can take the boy out of Standard Tools, but you can’t take Standard Tools out of the boy). The body man in the shop was working in a paint booth and we chatted a few minutes. I would know one anywhere, a CF-1000 Cross Flow Paint Booth from Standard Tools bought in 2002. 12-years-old and they still use their booth every day!

CF 1000 paint booth in Williams, Arizona — CF 1000 Paint Booth in Williams, Arizona from 2002!

As an online retailer of paint booths and other related products, I often don’t get to see the equipment I sell, all set up and being used. We love it when customers send us pictures of their booth after install, or when they are using it… but mostly they are too busy painting to send photos on. I am never surprised to hear where the next booth is being shipped. We have them all over the world. I wish I could travel to see every single one of them…. oh, the places I would see.

We continued our vacation to the west coast, driving down the Pacific Coast Highway for a week. Because of this little business & pleasure encounter though, I couldn’t help but look for all the body shops along the way….hoping to see through an open garage door and catch of glimpse of one more of the thousands of booths we have sold across America over the last 17 years.

I have included a few pictures that I took that day and a few more from the Grand Canyon itself although pictures can never capture the magnificence of seeing it with your own eyes.

Kelly Goudy

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Tag: spray booth