I am going to be doing a lot of painting in the next year (interior, exterior, cast iron lawn furniture and even my car) and was wondering if there is a spray gun on the market that is flexible enough to handle all of these duties. Or would I be better off buying a spray gun specifically for painting my house and then an automotive gun for the furniture and my car? As for a compressor do I need to buy a monster 60 gallon tank or can I get by with something smaller?
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I avoid painting whenever I can, but my somewhat limited experience says use an airless for the house and lawn furniture, and an automotive gun and compressor for the lacquer.
However, there are those on this forum who, IIRC, swear by a roller for truck painting. Dunno about the car, tho'. ;-)
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Everything fits, until you put glue on it.
When painting those big 80 gallon tanks simply work best.. It's about stored air volume and most compressors produce less air than the gun uses.. second reason for a big air tank is the very act of compressing air heats it up and it's much better to spray cooler air which a large tank allows..
In addition my big tank compressor is more reliable . It's well over 25 years old and hasn't needed repairs yet.. those smaller ones womn't usually last that long..
Big tank compressors also can do things you can't begin to think of with the smaller compressors.. like sand blasting.. Blowing out lawn sprinkler systems etc.
That said for the first decade of car painting I used a little 5 horsepower Sears and simply learned to deal with the flucuations in pressures as the tank emptied itself.. Untill I mastered that I would get a lot of sags and runs which I originally put down to my technique. I sure wouldn't use one for spraying any metallic or candy paint..
With regard to guns,, you will need a airless sprayer to paint a house quickly (rent it) and when painting most of the rest of the stuff you can use one of those off brand Chinese copies. They are massively cheaper than the Good American made guns.
I second all that.
Just finished up my bathroom, where I sprayed latex on the trim and shellac / urathane on the doors.
While it's POSSIBLE to shoot latex out the HPLV spray guns from HF, it is very slow going (which is why I only used it on the trim). It worked like magic spraying shellac and polyurathane on the doors though.
For painting walls, you want something able to apply a thick even coat of latex. A rented airless sprayer works wonders there.
Tu stultus esRebuilding my home in Cypress, CAAlso a CRX fanatic!
Look, just send me to my drawer. This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.
Thanks for all your help, didn't really understand the difference but now I do!
I use a accuspray versa max.. It runs off a 4 gal 1hp twin tank emglo, ya can buy a 2 1/2 or 5 gal pot for it as well. works great, the only thing is sometimes it does take the compressor a little time to catch up. But I have no complaints about it at all.
Be sure you pick up the right N&N for what your spraying.
But if your talking about paint interior walls a bucket and paint with a weenie roller works for me
use the sprayer for the ceiling if it has popcorn
Edited 7/2/2009 12:35 am by Sancho
I have a harbor freight 43430 hvlp gun that gets good reviews on the internet. It has painted my truck, my jeep, my trailer, a friends mazda miata, 6 propane tanks, a farm gate, 75 feet of deck railing, primed a few hundred feet of v rustic siding, sprayed ten or twenty residential doors with Sherwin williams pro classic (acrylic) enamel, touched up a lot of details on a small cottage painted with sw superpaint.
I wish I could say I had done the work, I just pay my helper (with 15 years auto body background) who makes it work wonders on anything that needs painting.
I can find a project that needs painting an my helper can get the hvlp out, spray it and have it cleaned up ready for the next project in under ten minutes. I keep planning on getting him to teach me but he does it so well I don't feel very motivated.
After all the projects I listed above and then some he says the tip is starting to show enough wear that the fan is no longer very even.
I also have an airless that moves a lot of paint from the bucket to the house in a hurry and it is nice to have when I use it every five years.
My helper has told me that a bigger tip would be nice for spraying the heavier bodied latex paints (harbor freight does sell them) but he keeps making do with the tip that came with it.
Usually it runs off a campbell hausefeld 5hp shop compressor with a big tank but he also runs it off my little 15 amp 110 volt emglo twin tank compressor on mobile projects.
Harbor freight has them for 39.99 on sale in the last flyer they sent out.
Good luck,
Karl