Currently, I am a weekend woodworker but someday I will be expanding. I am in the market for a good, quality hvlp system that will last a long time. I will be using it for thick and thin coatings. Which ones come highly praised? I’m too poor to buy cheap.
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Check the forum on Jeff Jewitt's Homestead finishing site. http://www.homesteadfinishing.com.
The homestead link is a great place to start... I have a large Graco turbine system and love it FWIW.
PaulB
I used to sell Apollo, and Accuspray when I was working for Michael Dresdner, if you are considering useing waterbased finishes ( we developed Hydro-Cote in '89) that Accuspray gun has a non reactive body and SS guts. You can leave the gun uncleaned and not have a major titsup event next use..just like solvent based lac.
Do NOT leave Cat.LAC in the cup or gun..ever.
edit: Binks is a good choice for a conversion set up, if you have a decent compressor that can keep up without having kittens, but again, the body of the gun needs to be extremly clean to perform reliably...thier system is well thought out and the manufacturing is excellent.
I found a turbine is far better for waterbased finishes, due to the added warmth of the supply air...flow out is better, delivery without as much blow back ( transfer effieciency) etcetera.
When building a pipeorgan in Chi-town, LakeShore, Febuary..outside..my filter plugged up on the turbine..grabbed a Hoover vac from the rectory and with skilled use of ele tape, was back in busines ...WB finish likes the warm air.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" Iam not a poet, but your hat is singularily inadequate"
Edited 4/8/2006 9:49 am ET by Sphere
Hey Sphere, how are ya?
Your post reminded me of a (probably stupid) question I've been meaning to ask someone. What is the exact definition of a catalyzed finish? I see the term, but I'm old fashioned when it comes to finishes and don't know much about all the new fangled stuff...
PaulB
I painted cars for a while and hung around a paint store so I can probably help out here.
Catalyzed finish was developed in San Fransisco in the early 1950's. There is a major paint lab in San Fran that works on many of the very finishes you see and use today. Imbody & Ronnett labs. That is where the product Imron paint, used primarily by the trucking industry, was engineered and developed.
In the process of experiments to create stronger and more durable finishes as well as finishes that set up faster, so they are ready to go into service quicker, the lab would mix large vats of finishes and try them out in a controled enviroment so they could time them, tax them with salt water and the like and ultimately modify them to suit the various paint needs.
As you may or may not know that area of the country is warm with cool nights and had a lot of rat problems in the early part of the century. So to combat that the people of that area allowed cats to roam freely and of course they continued, as they do today, to breed and flourish because of a rat diet and warm weather.
On one particular batch the paint vat (about 20 gallons) was mixing and the tech left the area to go to the bathroom. When he returned he shut down the mixer and poured enough product into a spray gun to give the batch a test. He went to the test booth and sprayed the test part. He was stunned at the results. He saw a paint that flowed quickly and smoothly and was set up in a matter of minutes not hours. A remarkable feat when you realize that this is in the 50's.
He went immediately to his superisors and they came back to look. All were amazed. But what really stunned everyone is the almost 20 gallons of the mixture was setting up, becoming a jello like substance in the vat. They hurriedly started emptying the vat out by pouring and scraping and what they found shocked everyone. It seems that while they tech was in the bathroom a cat had jumped into the vat and was mixed in with the paint. When he poured the paint into the paint cup he noticed a large amount of hair in the filter cup however was unsure where the stuff came from. The enzymes they later found in cat fur cause standard oil based paint to dry faster, harder as well as flow better. And that is where the name cat-alyzed paint comes from. Hope this helps. DanT
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL... I'm ashamed to tell you how far I read before I said "what theeeeeeeeee?"
PaulB
I coughed a furball as well. Cat lac is nasty stuff. Just plain nasty for both you and the equipment used to apply it.
I gelled a pressure pot full in about 2 mins, by shocking the mix with catalyst and not agitating properly or sumpthin like that.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" Iam not a poet, but your hat is singularily inadequate"