Painting - Spray painting

I decided to spray paint my garage door and got myself an HVLP gravity feed gun. WHen I poured the paint into the cup and started spraying intially nothing would come out After a while something started coming out but in globs. The gun seems to work fine since I sprayed thinner through it before using as recommended by the manual and it formed a good spray pattern. Is the paint too thick and does it need to be thinned. Is it normally necessary to thin paint for spraying. Also this paint is water based - if it does need to be thinned when would be the best thing to use.

thanks

Check to be sure that you are using a tip and needle set for latex paint. Check that your air flow is unrestricted.

Thin water based paint with water.

It is not unusual to have to thin some paints so that they will spray satisfactorily.

Hope this helps.

I haven't had much success with latex through a hvlp gun or a complete hvlp system for that matter. Without a doubt it's a matter of thinning. You can get it to run with adding some water but try some floetrol as well. Less water with latex is better.....I use floetrol with my airless instead.....careful with this.... too much and it will dramatically effect your drying time. Try shooting your door with oil base....experiemnt with your thinning ratios...50/50 aways does it for me. I'll garuantee your gun will perform like it's meant to.

If the door is chalky or adhesion is an issue for any reason, I would thin out the latex with Emulsabond.

Floetrol works great too.

I generally don't use thinner to thin out my oils, I use Penetrol.
This seems to give me a better coat when spraying.

Thanks for your inputs. It was to do with thinning. However, I found it very difficult to get the consistency right. Initially the paint started coming out but rather intermittently. I continued thinning and suddenly it became too thin and it came out more like a liquid than spray and was dripping. I gave up and used a brush instead as I had a number of other jobs to do as well :mad:

I will bear the advice for the future though. The place I bought the paint assured me it could be sprayed - did not mention that it was an HVLP gun.

I'm not familiar with floetrol and Penetrol - what are they exactly and where can I get some.

On the basis of this post I presume Latex paints have a thicker consistency than oil based.

You can get a bottle of floetrol at Home Depot Menards, Lowes or any store like that. Floetrol is a paint conditioner that really doesnt thin the paint like water does. It improves brushability of the paint and gives it a consistancy which make the paint spray better. Be sure not to mix in too much of it though. Normally its a better choice than water. The penetrol you would use in an oil base paint and works much the same as floetrol . This to you can find at any of the same stores and is sold in a metal container.

RAV12,

In general, latex paint has a heavier consistency than alkyd paints. A needle and tip for latex would be larger than for alkyd. I have found some alkyd paint that is thicker than latex. As I understand it is because it has less titanium in it.

By the way, what make and model HVLP gravity feed arrangement do you have?

Personally for me, ( except for auto or other intricate paint projects) if you got room and space to fit a roller thats the best way to go. Latex and alklyd paints paint uniformly on rollers and they come in different sizes and are quicker than spraying or brushing. Also you dont have to worry about overspray. Ive been in industrial gas plant settings where spraying is the norm. But we started to use rollers for the epoxy paint and its a lot faster and no need for special equipment and also no overspray was a definate plus. The only downside was that we went through a lot of rollers due the quick drying time of epoxy paint but that only epoxy paint. That the only method i use for enormous projects whenever possible.

Maybe I'll stick to rollers after this. I've always used rollers indoors since the walls are textured brushing takes ages and spraying requires lots of preparation. I thought it may be faster to spray outdoors but there is still the preparation time. I have to say that regardless of the consistency issue there was some overspray but not very much.

Chris - I'm using a relatively cheap gun bought on ebay for around $40 and sold under the name Calhawk 2 I believe. Having said that it seems fairly well constructed and the parts seem well machined. It comes with a 1.4mm and 2.0mm nozzle set - I was using the 2mm nozzle. It has a 0.6L cup for the paint. The air source was my 13 gal compressor.

I was just curious about the equipment, because people buy a variety of quality for different projects. Over the years, the less expensive guns seem to have improved, but still can leave a lot to be desired. Some report having to thin paint to extreme degrees for use with some of the past Wagner home sprayers.

I have a HVLP rig, but it cost close to $1000 when new many years ago. I have found, too, that indoor painting is almost always better with a roller or brush. It maybe that practice makes a difference overall. I can use mine outdoors or in my shop in less total time than rolling or brushing.

Good luck.