Spray Booth

To Spray or Not To Spray?

As I wanted to start spraying my models (for the big areas) rather than hand painting and making a bit of a mess of them I had decided on starting with the cans of spray from Humbrol as a first tester of the market.  If this proved successful and I wanted to carry on I might consider a reasonably priced airbrush set up, but we would have to wait and see about that.  

Not In My Back Yard!

So with that decision made for the time my mind turned to where I could actually do the spraying.  When I was a youngster and my mother was none the wiser I would do it in my bedroom with the window open and a few bits of newspaper and perhaps a bit of a box to protect the carpet etc.  But now I am a responsible adult and realize how much carpets and furniture and wotnot cost there's no way I'll be doing in the house (and SWMBO wouldn't let me with in a mile of the house with a spray can).  So the next place to consider would be the great outdoors where there is plenty of ventilation, but that would severely limit when I would be able to do it do to the famous British weather, coupled with living in a fairly rural coastal area with more wind than the big city.  So this left the garage which at the time of these thoughts was more than a little messy (see Operation Garage) so things were kinda put on hold for a while.

Boxing Clever

Whilst this may seem a bit of a tangent, our dishwasher was starting to fail a few months back with half the contents needing rewashing as it had failed to reach them with the washing jets.  What has that got to do with spray painting models I can hear you asking?  Well we bought a new dishwasher and there was a rather splendid three sided inner box made out of 1cm thick card that was incredibly sturdy and I instantly had it reserved as the walls of my spray booth!  Along with the lid bit to keep it all in line.  the card was of such thickness that I figured it should take staples well which could be the easiest way to hold it together.

Squaring The Box

So that was the base and sides of the of the booth sorted and I needed to figure out how to finish it all off.  This went through several variations including using clear plastic dustsheets across the top and lots of other lighting ideas.  But eventually (and I mean eventually) I have settled on the following ideas.

A Piece o'Cake

I could already foresee issues with getting around to the other side of anything I was spraying and I recall seeing somewhere a turntable being used to get around to all sides of a model.  Where to obtain such a turntable... PING!  Light bulb moment.  Rotating cake decorating stand - £6.95 from Amazon Prime -
Bingo.  Ordered.  Arrived next day.

Seems a good buy, and 4.3 star rated

Blinded By The Light

With the main body of the spray booth constructed the interior was a little dark and despite the plan for a clear roof it needed more light.  The easiest way I could think to get some descent light in there was with some clip on lights you can pick up from most DIY stores and some of the discount shops in the UK.  I thought 3 would be plenty, one for each of the sides, with some cheap daylight bulbs (they can be had for as little as £2.99 nowadays).

Putting it All Together

So the plans changed a little as I got everything together but I think it has actually worked out alright.

Marking it out

Getting it stuck together with some weights on top to hold it down, used PVA wood glue as well as staples as they didn't hold it as well as well as I had hoped.

Components assemble

Nice powerful daylight bulbs, bargain at £2.99 each and should put out plenty of light to see by.











OK so those pictures were all taken back in April when everything was going according to plan, though slowly.  Then life sort of got in the way and before I knew it we're in August and I spent more time doing Couch to 5k than I have on painting!  So with a few days spare after coming back from a nice sunny holiday the partly completed spray booth started to call to me from the garage, or more it was making sarcastic comments to me every time I went in there.  
And you know what there wasn't that much left to complete it really, apart from having to clear out lots of spiders and cobwebs

The lights were glued in place with a little bolt to help keep them in place, the cake stand was glued in the middle as I didn't want it moving around. and I added a bit of a roof as I didn't want stray dust and dirt just falling in if I was spraying.

All done, with a little roof added to keep some of the dust out

A 1/72 Curtiss Tomahawk for scale

Getting the Dak primed, at last

It's almost a production line now

Keeping them covered so the dust doesn't get to them

So there we are, finally completed my spray booth and started to spray stuff.  Just need to mask up the Dak and I'll be able to make much quicker progress with the sprays for the two top colours already sat waiting to be used.

Happy bunny.

Masked Up & Garage Raiding

Well my progress is at it's usual glacial like pace but I've managed to fit the windscreen of the Dak and then mask all the glasswork ready for priming.  First time I've used a masking liquid, Humbrol Mascol in this case, so no idea if it works or not.  If it doesn't I've got a job and a half ahead of me to clean the windows of paint.

The blutak is something I picked up from a thread on Britmodeller or the Airfix forum.

Storage Hunters PLF

With the bureau now up and running I thought it might be time to raid the garage to see what kits I have squirrelled away from yesteryear, along with the various tins of toy soldiers, sorry I mean military miniatures. 

There's treasurer in them there boxes

And these ones, somewhere.

These boxes haven't been properly checked since we moved house over 10 years ago (apart from to squirrel things away so the boss didn't see them), which was probably reflected in how hard they were to get at in the garage.  There was even kits stuffed in a drawer with bits and pieces of a car maintenance nature.

So I got this Airfix Fort Sahara off of that there eBay quite a number of years ago and hidden away it went, to be built one day when I got round to it and had the space and facilities.  I think I fancied doing it with ruined gates (the hinges are broken on one side anyway) and a LRDG team hold up inside fighting of DAK or Italians.  One day....

First box opened and I'm greeted with issue 500 of 2000AD (and a selection of other comics and gaming mags) and the Tolkien Bestiary, with Harnmaster and a few modules lurking beneath it.

Peel away the first layer and we find some plastic goodness, along with CarWars Deluxe and Marvel Superheroes.  All Airfix stuff, the control tower, a Beaufighter and a Me109, all useful for my desert airfield ideas.  The Beaufighter will be interesting as I also have the new tooling version from Airfix sat in  Bureau central.  Sounds like there could be a side by side build series of articles to me.

Old skool

Third and fourth layers reveal more of my roleplaying past, early editions of CoC, Rolemaster, Twilight2000 (from the days when it still felt like it could happen) and 2nd Edition Warhammer, I think.  Wonder what ever happened to my 1st edition box set?  Plenty of scenario/modules under these and the old cardboard dungeon floor plans.  Ahhh the good old days, the smell of nostalgia, or is it just mould?

Some of this stuff might actually be worth something!!!  You never know.


Casually shoved on a shelf underneath an old sports bag and some other garage detritus is this little beauty, I think this set was under £10 and has great potential for tarting up as a train from pretty much anywhere - the Eastern Front, the Western Front, North Africa or even the Far East, I'm sure you could even use it for North America as intended.

Choo chooooooooo

Mind the spiders!

Tucked away behind this was some serious squirreling, 3 copters from the UK version of Helicopter magazine.  Think I binned the mags but the models are all 1/72 and ready out of the box if necessary.  We have a Chinook, a Lynx and a Blackhawk.

chopper, chopper, chopper.

Final box of the evening was a bit squidged but I knew at lest one of its contents.  A made up, if slightly damaged, 1/72 Dakota.  The wing is now off it and an engine cowl is somewhere amongst the packing, but as this was always intended to be painted up as a crashed plane for a 'Rescue the General' type scenario it didn't matter and only cost a few quid off the bay.  Funny it seems smaller than the one I'm currently building. 

Good job it's going to be a crashed version

Nice surprise in the box though, another couple of choppers.  A Huey UH-1D gunship and a Wessex I think.  These were bargains as I recall, I think the first issue was something like £2.99, the second issue maybe £4.99 and after that £7.99 which for the Chinook was a pretty good deal.

So the final box I had time for I didn't fully empty it, looks to mainly have rulebooks in.  AD&D 2nd Ed, Runequest, obviously Judge Dredd rpg, some 80s vinyl, a box of dwarves and some other bits and bobs and rules. 

So that the haul so far, if you can call stuff you already own and have done for years a haul!  More updates when I get chance to return to the garage and tackle the main shelf, which I know has some of the boss's stuff on as well (childhood lego, still with the boxes and instructions - and she calls me a hoarder!!!)