How to be 100% safe painting my challenge car

I have never painted a whole car before, but you always see people wearing lots of protective gear while doing it, so I started looking into safety before I started going, and probably a good thing I did. I have some acrylic urethane paint that I hope to spray on my challenge car.

After doing some searching for what safety gear is required, I started reading some pretty scary stuff, for example:

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-dangers-of-urethane-paint.309308/

but there are also threads on our own forum (and I know people here personally have done it successfully and are still alive) that make it seem less of an issue:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/urethane-paint-how-dangerous/31084/page1/

Personally, I will have to buy all the stuff (HVLP gun, full face respirators, cartridges, body Tyvek, etc), but I am also concerned that my space is inadequate - attached garage to house where my wife and two kids under 3 live, no special ventilation units. I can roll the car outside but I live in pretty close proximity to my neighbors houses (about 1/4 acre lots here), and that doesn't get me any further away from my own two kiddos and wife.

So what is the real skinny? Are there really places that will rent a paint booth for a few hours? If that is the case and I don't have to buy the tools and safety gear I might really prefer that option.

Is the rustoleum acrylic enamel everyone uses for the $50 paint jobs safer to spray in my garage?

I could ask my wife about using our [detached] garage... You'd have to provide plenty of cardboard/plastic hangings/etc. She'd probably nix that though due to the dogs hanging out outside some of the time. 

In reply to Robbie : Don't expose the kids to any paint. Send them to the zoo or Grandma's house until everything is odor free

There are some nasty paints out there that need a lot of safety gear to use.  They also tend to have long lasting odor

There are paints that are reasonably benign.  Old fashioned lacquer is one of  the more reasonable ones. I just wear old clothes and a 3M mask meant for painting.  But I keep the garage door open and a fan pulling the fumes out.  Lacquer dries 15 minutes after its' sprayed a half hour after that I can't smell it. 

There is a huge difference between doing it for a living and hobby as far as exposure. Big ventilation is a must even with $15 box fans and plastic sheeting wet the floor down first. Outside if the space is large enough you could maybe use plastic sheet with no ventilation but absolutely stay in there for as short as possible. 3M has some cheap VOC cartridge respirator the older style you used to be able to use thick cotton prefilters or you can get a fresh air hood with a turbine outside the spray booth. Nasty fumes for a day or two probably. There is waterborne paint that some say works better.

Something like a high school body shop paint booth or rental might work out way better for you, lots of fans and lights. It depends on how you can get the car there, and planning the order of assembly meaning paint the trunk on the car or separate etc.

It's a Challenge car.  Use a brush and a roller and get over it.

(Kinda serious)

The only proper way to do this is with full fresh-air makeup and a vented booth.

That said, for the few cars that I ever paint, I use the charcoal filters. My totally non-valid assumption is that if I don't smell it, I am ok. Dont forget the tivek suit.

You will stink up the house and the wife is going to be well pissed-off.

BTW, adding "100%" to your thread title made it impossible to answer this question, because there is NO 100% SAFE WAY TO SPRAY PAINT.  Period.

SVreX said:

BTW, adding "100%" to your thread title made it impossible to answer this question, because there is NO 100% SAFE WAY TO SPRAY PAINT.  Period.

There is, actually. You hand the paint, a pre-sanded/masked car and some trade-worthy items to your friend who owns or works at a body shop equipped to do this sort of thing. Now, you could be killed waiting, but as long as you don't go into the shop you and your family are 100% safe from the dangers of paint. As an added bonus the job will come out better and there won't be a bunch of junk laying around your house you will never use again.

I'm not going to comment on personal safety equipment because I know my practices are largely inadequate. But...

Don't use a fan, especially the cheap $15 box fans in a "draw through" configuration. 

Paint vapors are flammable, potentially explosive.

Electric motors produce arcs at the armature. 

Don't blow up your garage! I yell at the screen every time I see this done. 

Of course the odds of that actually happening are... varied... Depending on the type of paint, spray equipment, cubic feet of your booth, and the rate of your ventilation air flow.

Professional booths are large, and have air flow rates high enough to feel a slight breeze when the the ventilation system is on. Their fan motors are also "explosion proof" designed specifically to operate in volatile atmospheres, even though the majority of them are designed so the motors are not directly exposed to the ventilation flow. 

The safest bet is a large belt driven squirrel cage fan blowing through dust filters then through the booth.

Your fans, air compressor, and any other operating motorized equipment should not be in the booth.

I keep my paint in an outdoor cabinet. Even just opening and mixing the paint will stink up place for a couple days, so keep that in mind. 

In reply to Huckleberry :

I'll give you that one.  Touche!

If you can set up a flow path where the fan is taking outside air sucking through a filter and pressurizing the spray booth with fresh air, with an exhaust vent on the other side, the explosion risk goes down. I'm not sure if the direction of the fan blade matters but w/e TMI.

Crackers is right.

In reply to Crackers :Having been a USNavy trained fire fighting instructor I can tell you that the chance of a properly used fan causing an explosion is  rare.

For fire or an explosion you need three things.  An ignition source.  OK an arcing speaking fan could be the source. But what are you doing running a fan that is sparking?!!!

 You need oxygen (plenty of that around) but you also need fuel in the right proportion.  Too rich and it won't ignite. Too lean and ignition won't happen. 

My instructor at the Naval Air Base Treasure Island demonstrated how hard it was to get ignition by flicking lit matches into a pail of 115/145 av gas 

Psssst -- they'd go out.  Psssst out, again and again. * there is a trick,  the pail was filled to the brim.

Then he'd kick the pail over and flick a match and watch how fast we'd scramble to get it put out.  (smothered not sprayed  with water) 

My potnt is you need a lot more concentrated fuel/air mixture exposed to the right mixture  in order to cause ignition. 

Please take all the safety precautions you feel are required.  

I'll continue to use my box fan as I've done for the past 5 decades without the fear less well trained people would impose on me. 

Sounds like you basically said the same thing I did. 

https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/AccidentSearch.search?acc_keyword="Paint%20Booth"&keyword_list=on

Nothing to worry about here.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone! I'm going to poke around to see if there are rentable booths close by. There might be. A brush and roller also work, but don't think they really solve the problem of the paint being possibly nasty stuff.

I stopped into a new body shop one day and chatted with the owner.  He said he would rent me his booth for $175.  He now is pretty much only doing insurance work, so he may not be so amenable now.  

When i did my crown vic i set up my dad's barn like a booth.  Big squirrel cage fan outside blowing in through a filter, then filters on open window to create place for air to go out.  Then painting respirator and tyvek suit.  

The datsun i just kinda parked in front of the garage, parked everything else upwind, suited and masked up and shot it after dark so nobody would see what i was doing.  

Robbie said:

Thanks for the thoughts everyone! I'm going to poke around to see if there are rentable booths close by. There might be. A brush and roller also work, but don't think they really solve the problem of the paint being possibly nasty stuff.

Well, the paint doesn't change, but you won't be atomizing it and breathing it. 

SVreX said:

Robbie said:

Thanks for the thoughts everyone! I'm going to poke around to see if there are rentable booths close by. There might be. A brush and roller also work, but don't think they really solve the problem of the paint being possibly nasty stuff.

Well, the paint doesn't change, but you won't be atomizing it and breathing it. 

Yep, you only have to deal with the solvent, not airborne solids.

In reply to Huckleberry : Don't poo-poo hand painting.  Most body work painted in the early days was hand or brush painted.  Once dried they would carefully block sand with finer and finer grit  it until glass smooth.  

Perfect paint jobs were done that way