Shopsmith Forums

I been doing a lot of work lately that requires finishing with a spray lacquer or polyurethane. My methodology has been to apply a few coats of brush-on finish thinned out to a wipe-on consistency. This eliminates brush marks, and the faster drying minimizes dust. I work in my garage, and don't do the finishing spray until the garage has been "quiet" for a while. I'm waiting for the airborne dust to settle as much as possible, but inevitably, despite all of my precautions, and the fast drying time of the canned spray, there's dust in the finish.

So...my obvious question is "What do you do about avoiding dust." I've gone online to find smallish,easy-to-construct paint rooms, but the ones I've found are either too big (for cars) or too small (for airbrushing.) I'm wondering if any of you have constructed, or bought, a small, dust free enclosure that would be easy enough to set up and take down multiple times in your garage. Or, any other ideas? The point is, I don't want to have to rub out the dust with fine grit somethings.

Thanks

In this area, Jerome, you need a clean room. The Arizona Desert dust is everywhere. The only thing worse is the dust created when working with MDF.

An amateur, short term method (not exactly an elegant solution) is to create a small room within your shop/garage made of damp bed sheets. I took old flat sheets, attached grommets along the short edges so I could run ropes through them and then hang them from the rafters like shower curtains. I learned this from a friend who painted cars in his garage. Just enough moisture so they are damp does not cause any problems of which I'm aware. The dust "appears" to attract to the dampness. Another friend used Woolite in the water saying it made some sort of ion change which would attract the dust to the water in the sheet. No clue if there is any validity to the Woolite, but the idea of getting the dust to attract to something other than the paint finish was worth the effort.

Whether this method had any positive results would be difficult to quantify, but I used it every time I painted a panel and a couple times woodworking when brushing a finish on a headboard and cabinet. Maybe it was more mental benefit than practical.

Be well,
Ben