Precautions when spraying Poly fiber products??

[jrevens]

I did what painting I needed to do on my Kitfox outside on my driveway, and it shows it. When painting my T-18 I built a booth in my garage. Used a row of several furnace filters taped together and brought the door down to their height, using cardboard to fill the openings to the sides of the filters. I got a nice big, cheap box fan to install in the walk-in door opening to suck the air out. I put a layer of filter material in front of the fan to slow down the accumulation of paint on it, and changed that when necessary but the fan still got a lot of paint on it. If you can get a fan with a simple shaded-pole motor instead of split-phase or PSC, there will be no start windings and no switch on the motor itself to cause a possible spark. Even if the motor does have a centrifugal starting switch or a relay, the switching should only occur during the motor starting phase, when you’re not painting yet. There should be no other source of sparks from the motor itself unless it failed and “smoked”. You’ll still have an on-off switch, but you’ll operate that when you’re not painting. Regardless of the type of fan motor, the chance of explosion is very slim... I’ve never heard of it happening personally, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t. If the fan is running before and after painting, the level of fumes in the inclosure should be low enough to prevent that also. Where you’d possibly increase your chance of getting in trouble is if you had someone turn the fan on after you started, with a heavy mist in the air and the on-off switch making a little spark. Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but the bottom line is that an explosion-proof motor is probably not needed, and common box fans have been used for this purpose by many, many people. However, proceed at your own risk.

[Av8r3400]

I have set up box fans using both methods in temporary paint booths. Sucking or blowing. Using it to evacuate the fumes is more efficient and works better, but if there is fear of explosion, blowing in fresh air is an option. Cheap furnace filters, even several stacked up, will mitigate much of the particulates.

Putting a $10 Walmart fan on both intake and exhaust works too.