I’m a sloppy painter, usually ending up with more paint on me than the piece I’m working on. Add to that a new sprayer system and we’re looking at paint everywhere.

So I decided to make a portable spray booth (actually more of a backdrop) to prevent spray from hitting the walls, the sides of the house (when spraying outside), and so on.

I dug up my 25 year old knowledge of making stage flats to come up with a simple folding design:

Each panel is about 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide and made out of cedar we have on hand. This keeps it light and a manageable size. Normally something like muslin would be used, but I didn’t want to try and source that, or cut up canvas drop cloths. Instead, I got a roll of this:

It’s called “One Tuff” and is used as floor protectors for painters. It comes in a 2′ x 50′ roll for about $15. It’s not as strong as Tyvek, but far stronger than paper. Kinda like a reinforced disposable shop towel (those blue ones). The fabric itself is called Sontara. (Being a Doctor Who fan, I think that’s a great name.)

Since the flats are about 36″ wide and the material is 24″, I needed to overlap. This was fine, as all of this was just going to be stapled into place on the back. Here is the view from behind. Not as pretty, but it gets the job done:

It was stapled because (a) that is easy and (b) I want to be able to replace the material once it gets too saturated. (If it absorbs too much stain it becomes a fire hazard.)

The two flats are tied together with a couple of hinges, so the unit folds flat. I folded over a strip of the Tuff material and stapled it in place along the edge, preventing leakage from that slot. (The “One Tuff” material is very easy to work with. I thought it would be a struggle, but it’s really nice to fold and move around.)

In the first photo you can see my three legged stool. This is the one I just made for painting and for WorkMate bench use. I decided to give it a proper top (a 1×12) and painted the whole thing white. I went with white because it’s visible and what I had on hand. The paint should also protect the stool from absorbing much over spray.

A note about safety here: Don’t spray oil based material in an enclosed environment. It can be dangerous if the vapors build up — you could get a flash fire. I haven’t been able to determine how often this actually happens (versus wives tales), but it’s better to be safe. For my purposes I’ll be doing my spraying near an open garage door, with this unit toward the opening and a fan behind me. I’d put an exhaust fan closer to the unit, but I want to avoid having spark sources too close the the spray.