spray guns

[Pbmaster11]

I just bought a spray gun for my compressor...

wondering what size tips i use for what medium.

tips for spraying? adjustments?

[PaulMarcel]

Ah, excellent... first things first... load it with water and learn its controls 'spraying' the driveway. Helps a lot.

Which sprayer did you get?

1.0mm tip is good for dyes; shellac, too.

1.4mm tip is good for shellac

1.8mm tip is good for water-based finishes

2.2mm/2.5mm is good for thinned (Floetrol) latex paint

Thing is, that's just a guide. Gets you in the ballpark. For example, on my gravity feed LVLP conversion gun, I use a 2.5mm tip for water-based finishes like General Finishes Polyacrylic. While you wouldn't think it would atomize well, it does on my gun.

I've never used a sprayer for solvent-based finishes; no idea where they lay on the sizes.

For adjustments, that takes a learning curve. I'd start using a lot of pressure (check the gun's rating). If a gun can't atomize properly with a particular nozzle, it won't atomize with high pressure. Idea is to find the nozzle that works for your product (shellac, dye, clearcoat) then back off the pressure to minimize bounce-back. If you have a gravity-feed, you'll notice that you have to monkey with the fluid adjustment as you use up the product, at least that was the case with mine.

Also, dunno if this is the case with your gun or not, but mine has a triangle on one side of the aircap. When the aircap is positioned for a vertical fan, that triangle has to be at the top. Experimenting and looking closer at the nozzle revealed that two air holes on the cap opposite the triangle were angled into the spray more likely to lift it. With it upside down, the spray was lower and would cause drips off the aircap. But they are all different.

[Pbmaster11]

Just a cheap one to learn but was just wondering the general concept

[rallison]

Ah, excellent... first things first... load it with water and learn its controls 'spraying' the driveway. Helps a lot.

Which sprayer did you get?

1.0mm tip is good for dyes; shellac, too.

1.4mm tip is good for shellac

1.8mm tip is good for water-based finishes

2.2mm/2.5mm is good for thinned (Floetrol) latex paint

Thing is, that's just a guide. Gets you in the ballpark. For example, on my gravity feed LVLP conversion gun, I use a 2.5mm tip for water-based finishes like General Finishes Polyacrylic. While you wouldn't think it would atomize well, it does on my gun.

I've never used a sprayer for solvent-based finishes; no idea where they lay on the sizes.

For adjustments, that takes a learning curve. I'd start using a lot of pressure (check the gun's rating). If a gun can't atomize properly with a particular nozzle, it won't atomize with high pressure. Idea is to find the nozzle that works for your product (shellac, dye, clearcoat) then back off the pressure to minimize bounce-back. If you have a gravity-feed, you'll notice that you have to monkey with the fluid adjustment as you use up the product, at least that was the case with mine.

Also, dunno if this is the case with your gun or not, but mine has a triangle on one side of the aircap. When the aircap is positioned for a vertical fan, that triangle has to be at the top. Experimenting and looking closer at the nozzle revealed that two air holes on the cap opposite the triangle were angled into the spray more likely to lift it. With it upside down, the spray was lower and would cause drips off the aircap. But they are all different.

Just wanted to say thanks for the tip about the triangle on the aircap. I was using my gun the other day and was getting drips off the aircap when beginning a spray cycle. Couldn't figure out for the life of me why that was happening. After reading your post and checking my aircap sure enough there's a small mark which could be a triangle on it.

Ron

[PaulMarcel]

Just wanted to say thanks for the tip about the triangle on the aircap. I was using my gun the other day and was getting drips off the aircap when beginning a spray cycle. Couldn't figure out for the life of me why that was happening. After reading your post and checking my aircap sure enough there's a small mark which could be a triangle on it.

Ron

Excellent! No use all of us getting a flatter forehead working through these things

[markhochstein]

Excellent! No use all of us getting a flatter forehead working through these things

What kind of spray gun do you have Paul-Marcel? I've been using the Earlex 5000, but after using a friends Apollo 1035 setup I was hooked. I ordered one from my local Woodcraft, but they are backordered. In the mean time I've been looking for a small detail gun to use with the big turbine when it shows up and discovered that there are very few guns available for turbines. After discovering that and doing several nights of research I think I'm going to cancel the Apollo 1035 and buy a compressor and go with a conversion gun since there are a ton (too many!) options out there for those. Right now I'm leaning towards the CAT Jaguar J100H Gravity Feed.

[PaulMarcel]

The conversion gun I mentioned is a QualSpray from Homestead Finishing Products (Jeff Jewitt's company). It's more of an LVLP than HVLP. Mine's the gravity-feed model though they now have a pressure pot version.

That's the gun that is a bit finicky to set up but once you have it, minor adjustments are pretty easy. Running it on a "3HP" 20 gallon compressor.

Recently, I had a chance to get a Fuji Super 4 HVLP. It's more in the Apollo league than Earlex. Nothing against Earlex... never used one. This Fuji is like the Fuji Q4, but without the "quietizing" of the Q4. It had an 8-second learning curve before perfect spraying. Marc's said this before about the high-end Earlex... once you get to that price-point, going a little higher to hit the Fuji and Apollos isn't much more, but you get a lot more. The variety of guns you can toss on these 4-stage turbines is fantastic, though the gun that came with mine is pretty nice.

For small details, I decided to tinker with the small touchup gun from Harbor Freight. Worked very well, actually. To try it out, I did a whole shop project in dye. That's basically what I use it for now. Likely would work well with shellac, too, but haven't tried. Here's a review of that one I did after I got it. Worked well beyond it's $9

[markhochstein]

The conversion gun I mentioned is a QualSpray from Homestead Finishing Products (Jeff Jewitt's company). It's more of an LVLP than HVLP. Mine's the gravity-feed model though they now have a pressure pot version.

That's the gun that is a bit finicky to set up but once you have it, minor adjustments are pretty easy. Running it on a "3HP" 20 gallon compressor.

Recently, I had a chance to get a Fuji Super 4 HVLP. It's more in the Apollo league than Earlex. Nothing against Earlex... never used one. This Fuji is like the Fuji Q4, but without the "quietizing" of the Q4. It had an 8-second learning curve before perfect spraying. Marc's said this before about the high-end Earlex... once you get to that price-point, going a little higher to hit the Fuji and Apollos isn't much more, but you get a lot more. The variety of guns you can toss on these 4-stage turbines is fantastic, though the gun that came with mine is pretty nice.

For small details, I decided to tinker with the small touchup gun from Harbor Freight. Worked very well, actually. To try it out, I did a whole shop project in dye. That's basically what I use it for now. Likely would work well with shellac, too, but haven't tried. Here's a review of that one I did after I got it. Worked well beyond it's $9

Great, thanks for the info. I agree that the Fuji and Apollo systems are great. The Apollo gun is fantastic, but I called Apollo, Fuji and SprayGunWorld.com and asked them about getting other turbine guns and there are really very few to choose from - and they are much more expensive than the conversion guns that are available.

I found a 60-gallon 7hp compressor on Craigslist for $400 that puts out 13cfm @ 40psi. I figure that should be enough to run most anything except for the real high end-high air guns. All told it will still cost me $200 less than the Apollo setup and I'll be able to use some of the LVLP mini-guns that are available too.

[PaulMarcel]

I guess I should have said more gun options. True, Fuji has one gun available now, the XPC, but it can be configured conventionally, gravity-feed, mini-cup, pressure pot, and side-feed. It isn't just rotating the cup, these are different connections and cup attachments so you have a way to pick what you need, especially for people who have to shoot straight down or straight up most of the time. But, true, it is just 1 gun