PLW gets a spray booth!

After a long time thinking about getting a spray booth, I finally bit the bullet, and built one from mostly recycled materials picked up at a Habitat for Humanities Restore.  Some recent spraying of HO units in the basement showed me just how much crap was lingering in the air and I decided it was time to look into a spray booth.  My father, who has also built and custom painted model cars and 1:1 cars his whole life, also encouraged me to get a spray booth, mentioning that he built his own.

I spent the last week Googling DIY spray booths and I saw a lot of alternatives, from building plywood boxes to using plastic storage totes.  I was looking for something that I could move around easily and tuck into the corner of the basement.  I also wanted the ability to close it up and keep my recently sprayed items protected from most of the dust in the basement.  I saw a build from a guy on a military modeling site who used an old wall hung cabinet.

The cabinet provides a prebuilt box with a door.  I picked one up at the Restore that felt the right size, along with a bathroom vent fan.  I looked for a light but could not find one, so had to resort to new from Home Depot there.  Once home I located the fan on the top of the cabinet, offset to the left as I spray with my right hand.  I cut a large hole in the top for the fan to suck up the overspray.  I added a couple of 2x4 to the side of the cabinet near the top to hold a furnace filter, as well as a piece of 1x4 screwed to the bottom of the 2x4's to place a closet lamp.  With the box basically built, I proceeded to wiring.

The wiring was pretty easy, especially if you have ever installed a light in your home.  I screwed a junction box to the side of the cabinet so that I could have switches for both the light and the fan.  A replacement cord for power tools provided a plug and the three wires needed for all wiring.  Using the power cord lets me place the spray booth anywhere I want with an outlet in reach and makes it very easy to wire the junction box.  Inside the junction box is your typical wiring with hot, neutral and ground, pigtailed appropriately for the switches.  The wires then run to each the light and fan.

I tested the booth out today by spraying three Walthers N scale coil cars.  Everything was nice and bright in the booth and the fan worked wonderfully.  I think I could use a little extra air movement out of the fan as it's only 50cfm, but in the tight space of the cabinet it worked pretty well.  I need to paint the inside of the cabinet white to make it a little bit brighter.

Overall this was a quick and easy project and works very well for my needs.  For less than a $100 and a couple hours work, I've got a great spray booth to work in.

Rock Island Covered Wagons

Just finished up a few Rock Island units for a friend in Nebraska.  These came to me as undecorated Kato units with details added by the owner.  These were pretty straight forward units but did require some interesting masking on the noses.  We used Tru Color paints and Microscale decals with a Future clearcoat before applying decals.

First of the three was F7A #122 in the red/yellow scheme.  The owner added the spark arrestors and a small radiator on the top of the hood.  He also filled in the lower headlight.  This model was first based in red paint, then masked for the yellow nose and stripes.  Decals followed including the yellow stripes on the door grabs.

Second is E8A #658, also in the red/yellow scheme.  I grafted large numberboards to the nose from a donor F7 model to match the prototype 658.  This model was painted and decaled in the same manner as #122.

Last is E8a #649, this one is in the maroon/yellow scheme.  This model was stock straight from Kato and only got paint and decals.  The yellow nose was sprayed first to ease the masking and then the model was finished with maroon.  Decals followed including the yellow stripes on the door grabs.

These were fun units to do and were a real challenge to mask.  I used a lot of decal solution to get the large Rock Island letters to settle down over the rivets on the body panels.  Photos of the assembled units can be seen over on the owner's blog. thelittlerockline - covered wagons on little rock

Thanks for looking!
Doug