Fresh air breathing system rental?

[Joepthepilot]

I will be painting my plane soon with Aero thane and will need a fresh air breathing system. My question is does anyone rent this systems? Any thoughts? Joe

[RandyL]

I've never seen these systems for rent. But I bet if you spend the $500 and buy one now you could sell it for $350 when you're finished building your plane... $150 rental for the entire project, not bad. I bought a HobbyAir full mask system for my first RV and how now painted three planes total with it, and of course will use it for my Kitfox.

[kmul]

i have a hobby air that i bought a long time ago. hate wearing it and sometimes hold my breath and spray small amts outside. but its a godsend when you need it. use it for sanding stuff with silica in it, cutting the fiberglass kitfox seat as well as painting. my lungs would be alot better if i had bought it even years earlier. you wont regret having one. i'll let you use it if you will let me use your explosion proof fan. seriously what are you guys doing to ventilate your homemade paint booths without blowing yourself up.

[Mnflyer]

I've used a plain old squirrel cage fan from a forced air furnace for 25+ years, have paint 5 helicopters, 4 airplanes 2 old trucks, 2 tractors and a three wheeler with out a problem. Have had to scrape the accumulated paint off the fan blades many times.
Have used a Grayco HVLP spray system with a fresh air breathing system for about half of the paint and would never go back to using a respirator mask again.

[DanB]

i have a hobby air that i bought a long time ago.

That is a good question...I think we are all just spraying on borrowed time (knock on wood). I checked the price of explosion-proof fans and was blown away by that alone (pun intended). I'm currently beginning painting in a booth that I made. For an exhaust fan I bought a 2' x 2' box fan and have that drawing the fumes out with an AC filter in front of it. I also invested in a good HVLP gun which should keep most of the particles on the project and not in the air.

For a fresh air system, I made my own using an Israeli gas mask for a full face mask. I made the fresh air supply out of a squirrel cage and surrounded it in plastic. Found some small filters for it in Home Depot. The air supply hose can be found at a Health Supply. Randy is right though, if you don't have the time to invest in building it...buy the Hobby Air and sell it when your done.

[Bryan]

Just make sure you take all precautions. I know there are people on the forum that can talk about this in more detail than I but you must protect from absorption through the skin and around the eyes, and fingernails. I am having some nerve problems as on the first couple of planes I painted I was not protected well enough, I thought that as long as I used fresh air to breath I was OK. I know of a fellow that spent many weeks in the hospital with urethane poisoning. So be careful. I still like the paint you just need to really take precautions. Good Luck

[RandyL]

It's been done before but there are some obvious considerations such as dirt and bugs in the air, as well as some not so obvious such as the light outside is not very conducive to spraying. It can be done though.