Shopping Cart

Your cart is currently empty.

Introduction to Paint Booth Types: Cross Flow Paint Booths


In this series, we’ll look at some of the most common types of paint spray booths and their functions and benefits. This month’s spotlight is on the Cross Flow Paint Booths.

What Is a cross flow paint booth?

Also known as a cross draft paint booth, the airflow inside the booth is horizontal from front to rear. Cross flow booths come in a variety of sizes and designs, from small models that are about 10’ by 14’, to large truck-sized booths that are approximately 20’ wide and as long as you want.

How does a cross flow paint booth operate?

In most cross flow booths, the entry doors are equipped with filters to remove dirt and other contaminants from the air. This helps protect the quality of the finish.

The air enters the booths through filtered front doors and moves horizontally over the item being painted and out through the exhaust plenum in the rear of the booth.

Benefits of a cross flow paint booth

Cross flow booths are extremely popular because they offer several unique advantages:

  • Affordability
  • Easy installation
  • Simple design that works on any flat floor
  • Easy maintenance/repairs
  • Minimal training to operate
  • Versatile applications

It’s an economical alternative in shops that are extremely clean. Since the air moves into the booth from the front doors, if the shop isn’t clean, it will deposit dust and debris on the finish. The filters on the door catch a lot of the contaminants, but if the shop is dirty, the filters will need to be a higher quality and changed often. As such, it’s important to minimize contaminants in the air as much as possible, which can be difficult in high-volume shops.

Considerations of a cross flow paint booth

A consideration when thinking about a cross flow booth is if there is a need to heat the booth. Unlike a lot of its counterparts, the cross flow can’t be heated with our Sure-Cure AMU. The intake air entering through filtered doors makes it difficult. In other styles, the air is heated before entering the plenum. The cross flow doesn’t have an intake plenum, making it ideal for shorter spaces, but impossible to control the heat through an AMU. These booths can be used with heat lamps as a less effective curing option.

Another thing to consider is the safety of the booth. While all of our booths meet NFPA 33 requirements for safety, our cross flow booth is also ETL-certified. This makes it much easier with your local inspector, fire marshal or insurance agent.

Common uses of a cross flow paint booth

Cross draft paint booths are most common in the automotive industry, but can be used in many different applications:

Cross flow paint booths are extremely affordable and versatile, making them a popular option for many shops.

Upgrade your shop’s productivity with a cross flow paint booth

If you’re looking for a paint booth that makes it easy to get a high-quality finish on your products, a cross flow booth may be the right choice. It’s easy to install, affordable, and a preference of many painters.

A paint spray booth provides a safe environment to spray while significantly improving productivity and the overall quality of the finished product. We offer a wide range of paint booths in several sizes and styles, including ETL-certified models. We can even customize a booth to your exact specifications. To see what style will work for you, contact our team directly, email sales@paint-booths.com, or call 888-312-7488.

Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

Powder coating is the fastest growing finishing technology in North America, representing over 10% of all industrial finishing applications. So what is a Powder Coated Finish?

Have you ever seen a really shiny and clean metal piece and wondered what type of paint it was? It was probably a powder coated finish, which is an advanced method of applying a protective finish to practically any type of metal. It’s a sprayed powder that is a mixture of finely ground particles of pigment and resin. Once sprayed, the item is ‘baked’ at a very high temperature to cure the smooth finish and leave it with a sleek and durable ‘skin’. Here’s an old filing cabinet that we powder coated yellow.

Powder Coated Finish: The Powder Coating process provides one of the most economical, longest lasting, and most color-durable finishes available for metal. Powder coated surfaces are more resistant to weather, chipping, scratching, fading, and wearing than other finishes. Powder coatings produce no drips, runs or sags. Edge coverage and coverage inside holes and nooks is exceptional. See the process from our Powder Coating production on this new blog. Continue reading Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

A little paint booth business mixed with pleasure in Williams, Arizona

Williams, AZActually it was “business” by accident, or by fate, however you wish to look at it. Not really business, as I wasn’t selling anything.

Kelly in Williams, AzI have been with Standard Tools and Equipment Company for over 22 years now. It is a blurred line between business and passion… as my business is my passion. Working and traveling with the company over the years has been fun and I have had the privilege to see places I probably never would have on my own. I had never really spent any time out west, other than some trade shows in Vegas. So, when my son was chosen as a summer intern at a camp in Williams, Arizona, it gave me the perfect excuse to “Go West” with my wife for vacation this year.

The city of Williams, Arizona is known as “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon”. It is a small town on the Historic Route 66, only 2-1/2 hour drive from Phoenix. Williams was the last town on Historic Route 66 to be bypassed by Interstate 40. The community, bypassed on Oct. 13, 1984, continues to thrive on tourism. The Historic Downtown District covers six square blocks and boasts a rich heritage that features the Old West and Route 66 coupled with tourism trends today and the town’s heyday years of the ’50s and ’60s.

On our first day in Williams, we decided to go for a walk through town. We were walking down Main Street (Route 66) and we passed Custom Designs Autobody. The big garage door was wide open… I couldn’t help myself. I peeked my head inside to see the equipment they were using (as we say in NC, you can take the boy out of Standard Tools, but you can’t take Standard Tools out of the boy). The body man in the shop was working in a paint booth and we chatted a few minutes. I would know one anywhere, a CF-1000 Cross Flow Paint Booth from Standard Tools bought in 2002.  12-years-old and they still use their booth every day!

CF 1000 paint booth in Williams, Arizona
CF 1000 Paint Booth in Williams, Arizona from 2002!

CF 1000 paint booth from the sideAs an online retailer of paint booths and other related products, I often don’t get to see the equipment I sell, all set up and being used. We love it when customers send us pictures of their booth after install, or when they are using it… but mostly they are too busy painting to send photos on. I am never surprised to hear where the next booth is being shipped. We have them all over the world. I wish I could travel to see every single one of them…. oh, the places I would see.

We continued our vacation to the west coast, driving down the Pacific Coast Highway for a week. Because of this little business & pleasure encounter though, I couldn’t help but look for all the body shops along the way….hoping to see through an open garage door and catch of glimpse of one more of the thousands of booths we have sold across America over the last 17 years.

I have included a few pictures that I took that day and a few more from the Grand Canyon itself although pictures can never capture the magnificence of seeing it with your own eyes.

Kelly Goudy

Grand Canyon 3

Grand Canyon 2

Heated Paint Booth: To Add Heat or Not Add Heat, That is The Question

powder coatingIt may seem like there is a lot to consider when you buy a paint booth. It’s easy to get in the “let’s just get going and figure it out later” attitude. Selecting the right type of paint booth and developing a well laid out floor plan will save you thousands in the future. The main thing that folks don’t consider is if they need a heated paint booth to their booth in the future. Right now, they may not need heat because their business only uses it every couple days. But as the business grows and more business coming than you can handle…. you may want to add heat and make your booth work even harder for you. If you buy a Cross Flow, you won’t be able to add heat later. But our popular Side-Down Draft or Semi-Down Draft can be heated at any time… as long you as you consider a few things first to make your life easier later. Continue reading Heated Paint Booth: To Add Heat or Not Add Heat, That is The Question

TRUCK PAINT BOOTHS: exhaust plenum options

Large spray booths are commonly used to paint trucks, locomotives and boats plus used in many industrial applications. Standard Tools offers a variety of cross-flow, semi-down (a.k.a. modified downdraft) and side-down draft booths. A large truck paint booth is often made in a custom size and has custom features such as an air makeup unit, specific light and door locations and drive-thru doors. Standard size large spray booths are available, but many customers will require custom sizes due to either the available space or the item being coated.

Below are some options are criteria that affect size options:
1. Installing a large truck paint booth is a sizable investment. The booth size should allow for potential growth.
2. Large spray booths require support frames that are part of the booth structure. These frames protrude 5” or 7” beyond the outer dimensions of the booth, depending on the span of panels being supported. Continue reading TRUCK PAINT BOOTHS: exhaust plenum options

Sign up to our newsletter & Receive Savings In Your Inbox

Sign Up

Copyright © 2024 Standard Tools and Equipment Co.. | Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software by Miva, Inc.