Indoor paint booths, smells, fumes, etc.?

[Oldmopars]

Recently I have been trying to get into spraying craft paints through an air brush. The main reason other than cost is that there is no smell. I normally do my painting outside in a shed, but right now we have 7 inches of snow on the ground. Temps have been single digits. 

For those of you that have paint booths inside the house, not in the basement, can you spray enamels, lacquer's, etc.? I assume the exhaust hose goes out the window. How is the smell? If your wife was sitting outside the room you are painting in, would she complain about the smell? How bad? How long does it last?

I have no basement, single level home, my office hobby room is on the same level as the main living area. 

I am looking for a painting solution that will work all year long. My craft paint experiment is not the perfect solution, I'm just not there yet. 

Any suggestions would be great.  

[stitchdup]

I use mine in the living room or bedroom, no problems unless the wind is in the window the hose is sticking out of but then its easy to use another window. My booth is a cheap one from amazon and I use mostly auto paints (acrylic) from a spray can. I have emphysema so fumes are a big problem for me but the booth fixed that. I would suggest getting a booth a size or 2 up from mine (14" by 24") as I find mine just a little small. I build 1/24 and 1/25 cars mostly. Mine also has lights around the opening which i would say is a must have as you will block a lot of light when you are painting. There is a slight smell sometimes but i dont think it is too strong. Also be sure to get more filter screen at the same time as you can be sure you'll need it when everywhere is closed

[steveracer]

My wife has a very sensitive nose.  I used to paint in the basement with a MicroMark spray booth vented directly outside.  She could smell the paint within minutes upstairs watching tv.

Here is the catch.  The HVAC system pulled the fumes from the basement and distributed them throughout the ductwork in the house.

Consider that as a problem or not...

[Dave G.]

16 hours ago, Oldmopars said:

Recently I have been trying to get into spraying craft paints through an air brush. The main reason other than cost is that there is no smell. I normally do my painting outside in a shed, but right now we have 7 inches of snow on the ground. Temps have been single digits. 

For those of you that have paint booths inside the house, not in the basement, can you spray enamels, lacquer's, etc.? I assume the exhaust hose goes out the window. How is the smell? If your wife was sitting outside the room you are painting in, would she complain about the smell? How bad? How long does it last?

I have no basement, single level home, my office hobby room is on the same level as the main living area. 

I am looking for a painting solution that will work all year long. My craft paint experiment is not the perfect solution, I'm just not there yet. 

Any suggestions would be great.  

I think you have it backwards, keep going with some form of acrylics inside the house. There are some very good ones these days. And when the hankering for lacquers or enamels comes along do that in the nice seasons outdoors or in the shed. You won't need an expensive booth to shoot acrylics in the house and you won't bother yourself, the wife or any pets if there are any. Most any hobby grade booth will do. Heck half the time I shoot into the kitchen trash can.

Tamiya acrylic shot with Denatured alcohol as thinner produces lacquer like results. Your craft paints done right, thinned correctly then clear coated with one of a number of different low toxicity clear coats can come out well above hacker standards and your wife won't smell a thing. Vallejo Model Air paints for base coating or so called color coating actually have a pleasant sweet low odor to them. Then clear coat with X-22 Tamiya. My latest experiment in clear is Bulls Eye clear shellac as clear ( skip the amber, you won't be happy). I used that on hand made Christmas ornaments this year as beside my wood turned ones I did acrylic pouring,then shot them with the spray can Bulls Eye. Perfect finish, see every light on the tree reflecting off these things and I just shot those into the trusty trash can as well ! It's not a product for humid weather but it works good in winter with house heat and dry air. I use Liquitex varnishes a lot too, low to no odor..

You have a ton of options for indoor painting that won't stir up others in the house.

[Oldmopars]

3 hours ago, Dave G. said:

I think you have it backwards, keep going with some form of acrylics inside the house. There are some very good ones these days. And when the hankering for lacquers or enamels comes along do that in the nice seasons outdoors or in the shed. You won't need an expensive booth to shoot acrylics in the house and you won't bother yourself, the wife or any pets if there are any. Most any hobby grade booth will do. Heck half the time I shoot into the kitchen trash can.

Tamiya acrylic shot with Denatured alcohol as thinner produces lacquer like results. Your craft paints done right, thinned correctly then clear coated with one of a number of different low toxicity clear coats can come out well above hacker standards and your wife won't smell a thing. Vallejo Model Air paints for base coating or so called color coating actually have a pleasant sweet low odor to them. Then clear coat with X-22 Tamiya. My latest experiment in clear is Bulls Eye clear shellac as clear ( skip the amber, you won't be happy). I used that on hand made Christmas ornaments this year as beside my wood turned ones I did acrylic pouring,then shot them with the spray can Bulls Eye. Perfect finish, see every light on the tree reflecting off these things and I just shot those into the trusty trash can as well ! It's not a product for humid weather but it works good in winter with house heat and dry air. I use Liquitex varnishes a lot too, low to no odor..

You have a ton of options for indoor painting that won't stir up others in the house.

Thank you, I will have to do some investigating

[Dave G.]

3 hours ago, Oldmopars said:

Thank you, I will have to do some investigating

Yes sure. But I didn't address your question that if you were to use lacquer or enamels with a booth in the house, would you offend sensitive nosed people in another room.. To which a properly used booth should do fine. Some lacquers have a highly offensive initial smell when sprayed and out-gassing when first drying but dry quickly. Enamels have high odor, to me not as offensive as the worst lacquers but much longer term out gassing when drying. So it isn't just about spraying but the drying feature. A booth plus a paint dryer or dehydrator pretty much negate that whole issue. There are exceptions as noted in an earlier post of the back draft issue. But if you air dry enamel left out in a room someone is not gonna be happy. I dry it in dehydrator mode in an air fryer and there is basically no odor. But I dry all my paints in dehydrator of one form or another. If you want to do enamels in the house and keep peace too, I'd kind of plan on that, not to mention it takes enamels down from days or even weeks of cure time to hours or over night.