On 8/25/2021 at 3:21 PM, Jim D. said:
SATA has a very good reputation, but sometimes I wonder if that is because they are so much more expensive than most spray guns. If you ever get one, I would be interested in knowing your opinion.
I too have been in Melissa's studio and seen her spray booth in action. If the noise is an indicator, then it is indeed very powerful. I have looked into various spray booths (DIY and otherwise) at great length. During that investigation I concluded that virtually all of the DIYs ones (as seen on Youtube) are intended for paint use. The big issue with what we do is that cocoa butter builds up and clogs faster. I made a spray booth out of a large box with a hole cut into the back, into which I inserted an air filter intended for a home heating system, and then I placed a large fan behind the filter. I finally gave up on the box because the filter was clogged with cocoa butter after a short usage and was virtually useless. In my opinion--and others will disagree--it's primarily the cocoa butter spraying into the air and back onto the person that is the worst thing, and I don't think a lot can be done about that. Venting to the outside means that the vent pipe will get clogged with cocoa butter rather quickly. In Las Vegas I wondered who gets to clean Melissa's vent.
I am currently using two methods of controlling how much cocoa butter I inhale. I wear a 3M ventilator, and that helps a lot. It looks weird and is quite uncomfortable, but I no longer blow my nose and see blue or red or green. The spray booth I use is this CakeSafe one. It is quite expensive, but it does help. It has a strong fan and a series of filters that manage to keep any cocoa butter from exiting from the back of the fan box. And in addition to the initial cost, I am using a lot of the "pre-filters," which catch most of the cocoa butter. I asked the inventor of the product about this, and he said he envisioned people spraying at 30psi. I am spraying at closer to 60psi, meaning I have to use more filters, but 30psi took too long to cover molds. And even this device doesn't stop cocoa butter flying through the air--it hits the box holding the filter and bounces back--and I don't see any way to control that. A huge spray booth would, I assume, contain it better. Some colors are worse than others--white and colors containing a large amount of white are the worst.
Jim - not sure where I wrote about it - but the prefilter of the cake safe is just interfacing. So if you take one of the filters with you to a fabric store and compare the various interfacings to it - you can buy several yards for not much money and cut it to size yourself. (oops - I really should read to the end before I post)
