Basement shop question

[GrampaJim]

I do all my work in the basement (garage in not insulated and this is February in Wisconsin).  In the summer I use rattle cans and spray in the garage, but at 20F right now thats not going to work.  So my question is how do I set up a spray booth in the basement (without sending me and/or the wife to the hospital from the fumes).  With a natural gas furnace and how water heater, I don't want to burn the place down either.  One last hurtle, I live in a condo development, so a separate building is out.  

[Bill WIlson]

Couple suggestions;  First, for basement finishing, use waterborne products.  They aren't flammable and the fumes are less of a problem. 

Second, you can spray shellac in cold temperatures.  It takes a little longer to dry, but it doesn't interfere with curing like it does with other finishes.  Humidity is more of a problem with shellac, but if the air is dry, you can apply shellac in the cold.  Now that doesn't solve the comfort problem, but it does give you an option.

For smaller projects, that don't require a lot of finish, I do spray finishes in my basement in the wintertime.  I use large pieces of cardboard to make an enclosure that sits on my bench.  In the rear, I cut an opening and attach a furnace filter with hot glue.  I put a fan, with another furnace filter over it, in the shop window.  Then I have a fan running behind me, gently moving the air in the direction of the window.  I have a lazy Susan platform that I set in my temporary spray booth, which allows me to rotate the project and spray it all from the open end of the booth.  I generally only spray shellac, which while flammable, dissipates and dries quickly, thus the overspray and fumes aren't much of a problem.  I'm not saying I recommend this method, as one should have explosion proof lighting in the spray area, but I allow plenty of time for the fans to clear the air and haven't blown up my shop yet.

[Dan]

Great info Bill! Thanks for sharing. 

[NC Scroller]

You can also use shellac that comes in a regular can.  Mixed 50/50 with DNA (denatured alcohol) projects can be dipped or brushed without a lot of fumes.

[oldhudson]

I spray (HVLP) in my basement in St. Paul, MN (actually a lower lever of bi-level home). I spray acrylic paints, shellac, polyurethane and others. I have gas furnace and hot water heater. I have access to a window in the area. I open the window  and use a filtered 20" box fan to exhaust over spray & fumes. At the other end of the basement I open another window. I hang shower curtains from the ceiling joists to create a spray room. I really like the set up. The last project was a 70" display shelf which I hung and sprayed vertically.

You can see a couple pic of the spray set-up here:

 

 

[Lucky2]

Jim, this is going to seem like a silly solution to your problem, but I've done it in the past. I don't like using water based finishes, never have and probably never will. But when I was into cutting and selling a lot of my work, I needed a way to spray finish products on my projects. It gets very cold here in the winter time, and you don't use spray finishes here  then. So what I finally decided to use, was a tent. One that I could close up solid with a zipper and a flap, and one that would keep the fumes inside of itself. I had a light on an extension cord, so that I could see what I was doing. And I had a small table set up in the tent, I usually used hooks to hang anything I sprayed up in the tent. Doing this worked great for me, it definitely kept the fumes from being to strong in the house. Actually, you could hardly smell any thing outside the tent, I think I was smelling the fumes off of my clothing. 

Len

[poupster2]

Len you're tent idea is awesome!  I will certainly work on that one for next winter! Old tents are always easy to find on Craigslist

Thank you for sharing!!!