Video: How to Make a Paint Booth

Set up your own simple finishing booth with a ceiling track and tarp, perfect for a home workshop.

In this video, DIY Creators sets up a large DIY paint booth in his shop. With this setup, he can have the paint booth up in a matter of minutes, saving him time and making it enjoyable to spray in his current workshop.

You can find more great projects and techniques from DIY Creators at their website.

Featured Tools:

Rockler HVLP Finishing Sprayer

Rockler Sure-Hook 360

Rockler Sure-Hook Universal Mount

Rockler Mixing Mate Paint Lid, Gallon Size

Rockler Ceiling Track System

90 deg. Curve for Rockler Ceiling Track System

Glen: When it comes to finishing your projects, one of the most efficient way is using a sprayer. I think spraying, rather than using a roller or a brush, is possibly every DIYer's dream. For me, there's a couple of reason why I don't do it more and that's setting up and planning and also the overspray you get. That's been a problem with me for a very long time but with the setup I have now, I can do all my preparation in about 10 minutes. Thanks to Rockler for sponsoring this video. Let me show you how I did it.

My layout is just an idea. I have to find all the trusses in a ceiling so I know what's possible. First, I use a stud finder and find all the locations that I know I have a two by four running through then I mark that on the ceiling. I have the luxury of jumping in the attic and seeing which direction the trusses are running. Right now, I'm laying out painter's tape to set the edge of the tracks. I'll do this in all four corners to give me a quick visual.

I have a pretty good idea on where I have support in the ceiling and where I don't, so I need to jump up in the attic and add additional support. Ideally, I want it to be mounted to this truss right here but the garage door motor is attached to it and it's on the other side of the outlet. That said, I need to add support in the ceiling. It wasn't easy but I managed to work this two by four in place and now I have something solid to mount the tracks to.

The ceiling tracks comes in four foot sections and they call for a two by four to be mounted to, but I'm actually using a two by three, which I think is suitable as well. Although the surface is not as wide as the two by four, it's still doable. I'm using this drill guide by Rockler to quickly drill out the holes at the same depth at the pre-mark locations. The two by four I added an attic is what I'm planning to mount this two by three to.

Since I'm working alone, I use three inch wood screws to temporarily secure this. I'll come back and add lag bolts and after I mount the entire frame to the ceiling. Besides, these wood screws act as a pilot hole for the lag bolts later. Now, I'll mark and cut the second two by three to finish off the first side of the frame. Now, I could have went wider with the frame but I wanted to move the least amount of things possible within the workshop. With this in mind, shuffling things in a shop should be at a minimum. I use the combination of measuring from the wall and also using a framing square to check to see how well I can get this in a square.

I repeat the same thing on the opposite side as I work my way to the garage door. Referencing the video screen, the trusses I connected to are going from left to right as my hand is pointing. However, near the garage door, these are going in opposite directions. I use a stud finder to locate the trusses in the ceiling and then place a mark at that location. Now, I can install the final part to this side of the frame. As this one is complete, I'll take care of the next one.

Now that all the tracks are up, I'll replace the screws for lag bolts. These are the 90-degree curves for the Rockler ceiling tracks. Before I install these, I need to make some quick modifications. The lag bolt to the left is the one that comes with the kit and to the right is the one that I'm going to be swapping out for. The ones I'm swapping out for are a bit thicker and does not fit the pass through holes. This is a very simple modification, I'll just make the holes bigger.

To install the ceiling track, I picked any corner and started there. Unlike the curved parts, there are no holes in the ceiling tracks so you'll have to drill the holes as needed. Now, I'll place the track in the curve and secure it to the two by three. The tracks are made of durable PVC so you can easily cut through these using a minor saw, circular saw, or even a handsaw.

Since I started one direction at the curve, I went from there all the way to the end and now I'm going to go to the other side of the curve and work my way all the way around. I was planning to create an opening at the garage door opener, but I sort of lost track of what I was doing and continued to track past that. I'll come back and fix it. As I mentioned earlier, I came back to this location and created an opening. With this opening, I'll be able to add and remove things from the track. When installing these tracks, one thing you can't do without is these track stops. Normally, you put these at the end of the track so whatever you put on the track doesn't roll off.

Let's take a look at how I plan to use this track system in the shop. This here is a universal ceiling mount and you can get pretty creative with this. This one has a five-pound weight capacity on it, but I'll test the limit as you see here with this monitor. The ceiling is almost 10 foot in here so I had to use the extension to bring the monitor down within my reach. With this accessory kit, there's a lot of flexibility in a shop. I find it quite useful to have a vacuum hose hanging from the ceiling as you're using it. That's not all you can hang- lights, power cords, air compressor hose, and anything that falls within the weight limits. This is the utility strap, which is also a good option for holding the vacuum hose.

The last time I sprayed in the shop, there was overspray everywhere. I enjoyed spraying and the time you save is unmatched. In order to continue spraying in here and not get paint on all my tools, I had to create a divider. In order to make the paint booth possible, these gliders are the key. With the track system installed, setting up should be way better than before. As far as setting up, I need to protect the floor and I do that with an old paint cloth. Now it's as simple as stretching out the tarp and hooking it to the glides.

This is a special ordered tarp, which is 20 feet by 12. I was hoping to get the 20 by 10 but that was not in stock. This is pretty bulky to deal with but for what it does, I'm okay with it. This single tarp covers a lot of space but I still need a second one. I'm not sure I can get the top to be this flat when I fold it back up but I'll sure try. The extra two feet of tarp hanging on the ground is a lot to work with but it's moveable so I can push it wherever I like. The extra length should prevent me from getting paint on the floor.

Being that this is my first time laying this out, I now know how many glides I need to leave on the track. I bought three of these tarps without taking in the final measurements of the track. Three would have been too much and as you see, two of them fell short. Eventually, I have to hunt down a piece of tarp that can fit this section, but for now I'll use plastic to close off this area. Here's a better visual from inside of the booth, allowing you to see how this is laid out.

In a perfect world, I like to be able to leave them on a track and push them into a corner, but I need my space in the shop so these have to come down. For now, this is my quick entry-exit to the booth. Unless I had a dedicated space, I'll always have to do some sort of setup. It'll only take a few minutes to hang the tarps and I'm ready to go. I'm very excited about the potential of this booth. One thing I have to add at some point is some sort of filter system that can pull out the overspray floating around in the air.

One thing I didn't show was this additional piece I added in the middle of the ceiling. If I wanted to, I can turn this area into a smaller booth. The main reason for this track in the center is so that I can hang video lights and other accessories such as vacuum hose, extension cords, and whatever else I need to. The ceiling tracks and accessory pieces were all supplied by Rockler. I'll link those down in the video description.

Now, I asked for those products and they also sent me some goodies. Let's take a look at what they sent me. Now, once I let them know what I needed for my paint booth, they sent me these additional pieces that should help me out in the shop. Let's take a look at the first that I'm familiar with. This is the HVLP paint sprayer and I've been using one of these for the past three years. While I do have other options to spray, this one is my go-to because it's so easy to use and simple to clean. To get the best results, I've kept the gun clean and I make sure I thin the paint based on the instruction on the paint can.

Now, based on my experience, I would recommend having a second container. It's always best when you're doing bigger projects to have all your paint thinned at the same time. You're simply just swapping container when the first one is empty. The next thing on the list is these finishing cones, really good for elevating your work off the work surface. These are some other gadgets that were sent to me and what they are is just pretty much paint mixers. You just snap these on your paint cans and you just go ahead and mix them and they have two different size, one for a gallon and then one for a quart.

If you're spraying cabinets and doors, definitely want to grab some Sure-Hooks. These work really well. You put these into your door panels, hang these. Now, you can just spray away. You're going to get these in two different forms, one for your cabinet and then there's a universal one here that you can pretty much attach to anything.