14. November 2008 by admin.

Oh, well, best laid plans and all…

I see as I posted the blog that my attached text either did not add, or else I just don’t know how to access it. So, let me try to explain…

Image one…The booth, the front

Basic 2 x 4 construction, with drywall backing and cheapest glossy shower board inside glued to the drywall.  The turntable is an old Brent wheel.

Image two…The inside, after a spray session

This shows the inside, with the floor comprised of two boards which slide in from the front, atop the wheel body but under the wheel head.  The exit flue for the spray exhaust is in the back bottom right.

Image three…Inside, one floor board removed

This shows how the floor easily removes.  The floor is simple formica covered particle board, scavenged from a cabinet shop.

Image four…The inside, both floorboards removed

This shows the works under the floorboards.  The Brent wheel is mounted on top of cinder blocks to bring the working surface to a comfortable level.  Why use a potter’s wheel for the turntable?  It’s rotation and speed is controlled by a foot pedal, leaving both hands free to spray.  Also, this keeps you from having to reach into the spray booth to twirl the turntable, a major inconvenience, not to mention the hazard of breathing the spray.

Image five…Outside the booth, the mechanicals

The exhaust fan motor, which is simply a scavenged (free) household squirrel cage blower from an old forced air furnace.  I block off the intake from the outside surface of the blower, so that all exhaust comes from the inside of the spray booth.  To increase suction, I hang a baffle down from the top front of the booth when not spraying a very large piece.

Image six…Another view of the complicated works

Another view, showing how the fan is mounted on a table, and is screwed to several 4 x 4 members.  I have simply sealed the joint between the booth and the fan using the expandable spray insulation.

Image seven…Outside venting

A picture of the ducting exhausting to the outside.  To bring the air through the concrete block wall, I used a rectangular-to- round adapter piece found at Home Depot, and attached a length of 6 inch diameter ducting through the hole in the wall (hammer and chisel, again sealed with expandable foam insulation).  I had a piece of galvanized made up to cover over the exit and deflect the spray downward ($50).  I do not screen the exhaust, as I’m sending it out into the freightyard of the CSX railroad depot, and they send lots of other stuff back my way.  For those of you in “green” areas, my old spraybooth in the country exhausted similarly over a grassy patch, which never showed any ill effects from the glaze spray after 16 years of glazing.

Image eight…View from above

This is taken from roof level.  I roofed the booth with drywall, but also installed a standard 4 foot long flourescent light ($10).  This gives me all the light I need for glazing, night or day.

Image nine…The rooftop

This image shows the top of the booth, including the incredibly complex carpentry required for it’s construction, as well as the storage place for some random scraps of M Board

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 6 Comments »

14. November 2008 by admin.

There should be text explained the pictures when you click on the pictures.  If not, I’ll fill it in in my next blog post.  I built this spray booth in about a full day, once the materials were assembled.  I’d built a couple more in earlier decades, so I had the basic concept down.  If you exclude the cost of the old wheel, I think it cost me a total of about $125.  The prior booth was even cheaper and lasted 16 years.

I chose to use a squirrel cage blower because it was free.  I take a piece of steel and clean the fins of glaze about every other kilnload, as it can build up and decrease the suction.  It takes about 5 minutes to do this.  I don’t put a filter in front of the fan as it decreases suction significantly.  If you chose to, you could run a waterfall baffle system through which the spray would pass, before it exhausted, but that would require more complicated construction and more expensive venting equipment.  I did not choose to use an in-line inducer fan because of the noise factor.

This booth really works well.  I generally spray across the pot, towards the exit fan, so that the booth exhausts quickly and efficiently.  When I did the math, I found that the air is theoretically exhanged completely every two seconds.  There is little if any blowback from the spray, so the operation does not seem overly hazardous to one’s respiratory health.

Any further questions or comments, feel free to leave on the blog, and I will answer them here as well.

Best,

Richard

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 3 Comments »