Spray Booth Review - Inexpensive one on Amazon/Ebay
Jan 13, 2017 11:14:37 GMT -5
deafpanzer and joelsmith like this
Post by chromdome35 on Jan 13, 2017 11:14:37 GMT -5
In the past whenever I took out the airbrush, the wife complained about the odor of thinner wafting through the house. To maintain marital harmony I had to get a spray booth. In my situation, our house has plantation shutters on all of the windows. My wrap around desk is just tall enough to block the shutters so that I can't open the shutters fully or remove them easily. This makes it really hard to open the window. I can squeeze my big paws through the vanes just enough to open the window a few inches but the gap between the vanes is only a 2.5 inches so the thought of running a 4" vent pipe out the window is a non starter. As I researched what my options were, I came across this booth on both Amazon and Ebay.
Master Airbrush Spray booth w/ LED Lights
While a bit small for my tastes, it did meet two of my main criteria: 1) Could be easily disassembled 2) Had a thin exhaust outlet that I could fit between the vanes of the plantation blinds. Secondarily, it wasn't all that expensive compared to the Artograph and Paasche booths. So I pulled the trigger an ordered it.
This is a review of the booth for anyone else considering purchasing a spray booth.
The one I ordered has LED lights that are contained in bars that clip onto the top front edge and plug into the back filter bar. Below are some pictures.
The first one I received from Amazon didn't have the light bars in the box. It was easy to send back to Amazon, get a refund and order a replacement. The second one I received had everything in the box that was supposed to be there.
There are two things I don't like about the lights:
1) The color is very blue which causes a color cast on anything you are painting.
2) The lights are very bright and I find the glare from them to be annoying. I don't know how to fix the first, but I did remedy the second by cutting a 85mm x 370m wide strip of foam board and taping it to the top edge with painters tape.
LED Light strips and attachment. They plug into the filter frame which provides the power.
You can order a version without the lights for $10 cheaper here Booth Without Lights
As to the overall durability of the booth, the box containing the on off switch, fan, and filter is constructed out of metal and should be very durable. The sides and top that fold out from the box are made of a thick translucent plastic that has molded in reinforcing. The panels should be durable. The weak point will be the hinges that connect to the metal box and the bottom panel. The hinges are molded into the side/top panels and clip onto the box and bottom. I say weak, because anytime you have a plastic hook that clips to a metal rod creating a hinge, the plastic hook is the weak point.
Hinges
Now, if you are cautious when you setup and take down the booth you shouldn't have a problem with the hinges...just be aware of the weak link.
The bottom of the booth folds out from the box and acts as the "Lid" when you take stow the booth away. It is made of heavy greyish plastic about 5mm thick. It seems fairly sturdy. The folded out bottom serves as the work surface when you are painting.
One important note, the plastic used for the bottom is not impervious to lacquer thinner. I purposely put a drop of lacquer thinner on the bottom to see what would happen. It left a distinct spot. So what I decided to do was get some more foam core and cut out a piece to cover the bottom and two additional pieces to cover the first 150mm of the sides (see the pictures). I attached the foam core to the sides with some sticky tack so they would be easily removable.
Lacquer Spot on bottom plastic
I have a thing for tools (I consider the booth to be a tool) and I like my tools to stay clean and minty for as long as possible. Lining the inside of the booth with White foam board keeps paint off the booth (Be aware that with the lights it also causes the reflection to increase). It has the side benefit of letting me spray on the foam board to see what's coming out of the brush before it goes on the model. And when the foam core gets too grungy for my taste, I can just flip it over and use the other side.
Foam Board
I wish the booth was bigger. It is fine for armor models but would inadequate for ship models unless your doing the HMS Hood in 1/200,000 scale. I suspect it is too small to hold most plane models as well. Might be fine for the smaller scales. One of the "features" of this booth is that you can purchase two of them and connect them together side by side to create a wider booth which I think would then give you plenty of space for ships or wingspan albeit at twice the cost.
The work area dimensions are 16 Wide x 15 Deep x 11.5" Tall. That is 407mm wide by 380mm deep x 290mm tall for you guys stuck in countries using the antiquated metric system.
My M4A3 sitting in the booth to give you a sense of size.
It's a bit noisy, If I have it on in my office, I can't hear my wife calling from the kitchen over the sound of the fan. If my wife is in the room with me, we can talk, but I would want to turn it off to have a proper conversation.
The exhaust hose does what it's supposed to. I had a bit of trouble trying to get the flatish window piece to go on properly, it's just a tight fit. One thing to note: The exhaust apparatus does not fit inside the booth when folded up, so you have to have space to store it in addition to the booth itself.
All in all I would give it a thumbs up. It's a fairly well put together bit of kit (I worked in the UK for a while so I know a bit of the lingo). It's not so expensive that if you get a few years of service out of it and it breaks you feel cheated. It's small, lightweight, easy to assemble and take down and does a good job of extracting odor which was my main issue.
The fan in this booth is rated at 140 CFM. It is a brushless DC Axial fan much like the type you find in computers.
Feel free to ask questions.
Master Airbrush Spray booth w/ LED Lights
While a bit small for my tastes, it did meet two of my main criteria: 1) Could be easily disassembled 2) Had a thin exhaust outlet that I could fit between the vanes of the plantation blinds. Secondarily, it wasn't all that expensive compared to the Artograph and Paasche booths. So I pulled the trigger an ordered it.
This is a review of the booth for anyone else considering purchasing a spray booth.
The one I ordered has LED lights that are contained in bars that clip onto the top front edge and plug into the back filter bar. Below are some pictures.
The first one I received from Amazon didn't have the light bars in the box. It was easy to send back to Amazon, get a refund and order a replacement. The second one I received had everything in the box that was supposed to be there.
There are two things I don't like about the lights:
1) The color is very blue which causes a color cast on anything you are painting.
2) The lights are very bright and I find the glare from them to be annoying. I don't know how to fix the first, but I did remedy the second by cutting a 85mm x 370m wide strip of foam board and taping it to the top edge with painters tape.
LED Light strips and attachment. They plug into the filter frame which provides the power.
You can order a version without the lights for $10 cheaper here Booth Without Lights
As to the overall durability of the booth, the box containing the on off switch, fan, and filter is constructed out of metal and should be very durable. The sides and top that fold out from the box are made of a thick translucent plastic that has molded in reinforcing. The panels should be durable. The weak point will be the hinges that connect to the metal box and the bottom panel. The hinges are molded into the side/top panels and clip onto the box and bottom. I say weak, because anytime you have a plastic hook that clips to a metal rod creating a hinge, the plastic hook is the weak point.
Hinges
Now, if you are cautious when you setup and take down the booth you shouldn't have a problem with the hinges...just be aware of the weak link.
The bottom of the booth folds out from the box and acts as the "Lid" when you take stow the booth away. It is made of heavy greyish plastic about 5mm thick. It seems fairly sturdy. The folded out bottom serves as the work surface when you are painting.
One important note, the plastic used for the bottom is not impervious to lacquer thinner. I purposely put a drop of lacquer thinner on the bottom to see what would happen. It left a distinct spot. So what I decided to do was get some more foam core and cut out a piece to cover the bottom and two additional pieces to cover the first 150mm of the sides (see the pictures). I attached the foam core to the sides with some sticky tack so they would be easily removable.
Lacquer Spot on bottom plastic
I have a thing for tools (I consider the booth to be a tool) and I like my tools to stay clean and minty for as long as possible. Lining the inside of the booth with White foam board keeps paint off the booth (Be aware that with the lights it also causes the reflection to increase). It has the side benefit of letting me spray on the foam board to see what's coming out of the brush before it goes on the model. And when the foam core gets too grungy for my taste, I can just flip it over and use the other side.
Foam Board
I wish the booth was bigger. It is fine for armor models but would inadequate for ship models unless your doing the HMS Hood in 1/200,000 scale. I suspect it is too small to hold most plane models as well. Might be fine for the smaller scales. One of the "features" of this booth is that you can purchase two of them and connect them together side by side to create a wider booth which I think would then give you plenty of space for ships or wingspan albeit at twice the cost.
The work area dimensions are 16 Wide x 15 Deep x 11.5" Tall. That is 407mm wide by 380mm deep x 290mm tall for you guys stuck in countries using the antiquated metric system.
My M4A3 sitting in the booth to give you a sense of size.
It's a bit noisy, If I have it on in my office, I can't hear my wife calling from the kitchen over the sound of the fan. If my wife is in the room with me, we can talk, but I would want to turn it off to have a proper conversation.
The exhaust hose does what it's supposed to. I had a bit of trouble trying to get the flatish window piece to go on properly, it's just a tight fit. One thing to note: The exhaust apparatus does not fit inside the booth when folded up, so you have to have space to store it in addition to the booth itself.
All in all I would give it a thumbs up. It's a fairly well put together bit of kit (I worked in the UK for a while so I know a bit of the lingo). It's not so expensive that if you get a few years of service out of it and it breaks you feel cheated. It's small, lightweight, easy to assemble and take down and does a good job of extracting odor which was my main issue.
The fan in this booth is rated at 140 CFM. It is a brushless DC Axial fan much like the type you find in computers.
Feel free to ask questions.
Too much paint sniffing???