DIY spraybooth - how to hold pleated card filter media?

[ivan]

The only pro booth I've been in, had a wet / waterwash filter, so I'm guessing from photographs that the pleated media slots into a holding frame of some sort. Could someone with pro "booth savvy" say how this is normally done?

I was thinking of using some galvanised trunking (folded channel about 50x50mm). In a carefully sized frame, the filter could just slot in and be held top and bottom. What holds the concertina of pleats open at each side - adhesive tape?

The pleated filter is quite rigid - but is it rigid enough to be self supporting, or will it need some (say) weldmesh behind it?

thanks in anticipation!

 

[Scrit]

Hi Ivan

The waterwashed variety are now very much frowned upon and I believe they now require an Environment Agency licence so pretty much everyone seems to have gone over to dry-backed booths. The material is generally available in rolls, or sometimes cut lengths, from companies selling spraying equipment and trade car paint outlets and comes in various widths/lengths. The material is fairly rigid and self-supporting and just sits in a trough top and bottom which has a sort of fold-down lipping. My last (manufactured) booth had a very coarse welded mesh at the back to stop the filter being sucked through (i've also seen booths with just two or three flat strips across the opening) and clip affairs at the sides of the opening to hold the filter edges, although gaffer tape would probably do just as well, IMHO. I've had my filters from Dexter Industrial Paints in Burnley in the past - they make and sell paints but also sell spraying equipment as well (and have a branch in Lincolnshire).

I reckon that a booth can be built just as easily from 3 x 2 studding with plasterboard, which is fireproof after all, because providing you have enough air flow through the booth very little overspray will end up on the walls - it should end up on the filter in the main

Scrit

 

[Anonymous]

Mine has 900mm high filter paper, top and bottom. As you say it just sits in a recess. Doesn't need any support at the back, as the concertina effect gives it the required strength and it just pushes tight to the side, holds itself, its a 3 metre booth, with big fan and the paper is held fine.
If your making one my advice is you need a lot of light (should be fire hazard safe), and make sure its sealed to the floor so all the suction is through the filters.

 

[ivan]

Thanks to you both, it's full steam ahead, with experiments, I think!

Previous arrangements - the big outdoors, and later a fold up effort with (sparkproof) fan as per Fine Woodworking. The latter only had about 1 sq m of glassfibre filter; the small surface area has a lot of flow resistance. I'm hoping 3 or 4 sq m of pleated filter will pass a bit more air.

 

[Nick W]

Let us know how you get on. Drawings and/or piccies woudlbe useful for those intending to do the same. :wink:

 

[Scrit]

To add to what Senior said, it's not just the lights which need to be flameproof - the extraction fan itself should be at least a TEFC (totally enclosed fan cooled) and preferably what is called "explosion proof" as the vapours you are extracting can be a bit inflamable (even with waterbournes). Of course the other thing a spray room needs is some way to make-up for heat loss quickly, especially in winter

Scrit

 

[Anonymous]

we just get very cold, :lol:

 

[Scrit]

we just get very cold :lol:

Might I suggest you don't move North, then? :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

we just get very cold :lol:

Might I suggest you don't move North, then? :roll:

I know you may find this hard to believe but I am technically a northerner, but disowned my roots many years ago, nowadays I get very uncomfortable north of Cambridge.
About 5 years ago I spent a weekend in scarborough, couldn't understand a single word and full of odd bods, give me Poole or cornwall any day of the week.

Or to translate..

ee bye gum, born n bred in yarkshear, ecky thump the folk in Scarborough, dim in head. :lol:

 

[ivan]

The fan I've been using is ali bladed TEFC ex agricultural ventilation job (used to keep pigs cool). Not entirely kosher but fairly safe with solvents if used to pressure the spray area, with the motor on the 'suck' side handling clean incoming air. It's probably more effective to have the fan behind the filter, but thus mounted, water boune finish only.

thanks for your help, Ivan