Curious what you other spray gun users do to clean your setups, especially when using solvent finishes. I try to avoid them but whenever I do I wind up swearing I’ll never do it again. How many gallons of cleaner do you run through and what the heck do you do with it? Use it once and toss it? I’m using a Graco HVLP and if the air cap pinholes get clogged I must spend an hour with a strand of wire cleaning em… ugh.
PaulB
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Replies
On the same note, how long can your paint stay in the gun before you clean it? Can you get more than one coat on before cleaning out the contents?
“The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds..” – Hume
If I'm using it all day, I may put the gun's end into a bucket of water or solvent (I'm using a remote pressure fed pot). I've never tried longer than that, but I suspect it would be asking for trouble...
PaulB
Edited 3/31/2007 7:29 pm ET by PaulBinCT
I have a cheap "HLVP" 50$ model I bought on Ebay I have been cleaning up with a blow gun and thinner. A little thinner in a drywall pan works good for this one to be "nose down" in.
I wanted to ask you about your Graco HVLP if you don't think it will mess up your thread - I have a 4900 (used-Ebay) on the way, supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I'm feeling a little buyer's remorse since we got the cheap one working great right after I ordered this one. Are you happy with yours?
Love mine Fonz... I've had it for several years and aside from the learning curve have had no issues at all. What did you pay for yours?PaulB
I paid 560 delivered. It's supposed to have 60 hours on it - lightly used. It's supposed to come today. One thing that got me worried, a google turned up a guy that was having trouble spraying latex with it.
I can't imagine you'll have problems. I have an older model, only a 2 stage but very large (8") turbine and I spray unthinned latex all the time. If you don't decide to keep it let me know, I might be interested.
PaulB
Thanks for the encouragement. The sprayer came today and it really looks like a quality tool. I turned on the turbine and was amazed at the quantity of air. I was under the mistaken impression that there was a separate air line to pressure the paint in the can. Evidently the pressure for the paint in the can comes from the same source (I guess I need to read the manual, (ha)). The gun looks simple - adjustments seem clear. Do you spray the WB (I assume that means "water borne" laquer?) If so, is that similar to Minwax Polycrylic? We have had failures with that. The guys have been raving about some certain quick drying finish they're spraying with these guns but I'm not familiar with it.
Edited 4/2/2007 11:14 pm ET by Fonzie
I spray epoxy and polyurethane and used to buy the $300 HVLP guns. No matter how carefully I cleaned them they would last about four uses before some part would clog or a valve would stick and then the pattern became erratic. Between the cost of parts, solvent and my time spent trying to clean them, I figured I was paying about $600 to use one of these guns four times, or about $150 per use.The solution? I now buy the cheap-o, $69 HVLP guns and just throw them away when they stop working after 2-3 uses. They aren't as fancy as the Graco or DeVilbiss guns, but the differences are surprisingly small.
Minwax IMHO is mediocre at best Fonzie. Spring for something like General WB Poly. FWW recently ran a real good comparison of WB finishes. Good luck...PaulB
The best way to clean oli base paint out of spray tips is to leave your gun with the tip in it while you run the sprayer with paint thinner. Increase the pressure on the sprayer, spray the gun into a 5 gallon bucket. Reverse the tip while you run it with thinner, when it looks clean throw it in a clean thinner bucket. Save the dirty thinner in a clear plastic contaier allow the paint to seperate from the thinner and reuse dirty thinner later.
airless.... latex... if i'm use'n it for a few days.... gun gets tossed in a 5gal bucket of water... i also coil up the hose in the same bucket... when you take it out you can just wipe all the overspray off your hose... i then wipe the hose down with a rag with wd40 on it... helps to keep the hose easy to clean... also spray the pump with wd40 on the outside... makes clean'n it up easy...
for oil based... i buy the cheap no name mineral spirits... if spray'n fr a few day... i run it thru the gun.. then put the tip into the gun cup...this keeps until the next day...
again wd40 on all exterior surfaces... makes clean up faster... when clean'n up for storage... seems i spend better part of an hour clean'n whatever type gun airless, pressure, hplv...
for airless i do keep a set of hoses for latex and a set just for oils... i keep the oil based ones full of thinner and with a fitting screw the ends together....
takes time to clean em well
p
Thanks guys... guess there is no magic secret shortcut ;)PaulB