I'm not a painter, but I do side work every now and then and am looking to buy a gun for primer, base, and clear in the near future! Those of you who do spray what guns, brands, tips size etc. do you like or works best....? So far I am liking DeVilbiss but am looking for more info and options.

 

i am a big iwata fan. i use a iwata lph-400 for clear at work on a daitly basis. i use a 1.4 tip on it. for my base coat i like to use a 1.3. as for primer guns you will need a bigger tip because the primer is so much thicker and needs to atomize properly. if you are using a smaller tip for primer you will need to apply alot more coats, this being because you need material on the repair to sand and not breakthrough into the bondo/glaze work.

 

What psi do you shoot primer with, I use a 1.4 tip and always get exsessive overspray/ roughness in tight spots... Should I use less pressure and a bigger tip?

 

air pressure is all by feel really. i rarely ever check my psi guage. but its normally with an hvlp spray gun no more than 20-25 psi. base coat is less than that. as for the overspray, make sure you have your gun pointed directly at the surface you are painting. if you change the angle, for instance if your gun is at 80 degress versus 90 degrees the paint will go out farther in the area, if that makes sence? also make sure that when you are spot priming to mask off at least a 12 inch area all around the repair to reduce/eliminate overspray from other areas and try your best not to hardline against the tape.

 

filthy 94 is right, it's mostly by feel for primer and even with most other coatings. A lot of guys, even my SATA rep will tell you to turn your pressure all the way up and adjust the fluid flow down for primer. I think that throws more overspray than anything. I prefer to have the fluid as high as it goes and the pressure low with my old Binks M1-G clear gun. It has a 1.4 tip and it does fine even with thick unreduced primers used more as filler. Primer always has to be sanded anyway so the roughness doesn't really matter. Of course less roughness means faster/easier sanding but If i need a particular area to be smooth because I can't get paper in very easily I'll just dump it on so it flows out.

Air pressure doesn't really matter unless you're spraying a specialty coating that requires a certain pressure. For example, PPG tells you to spray waterborne basecoat, metallic or not, at 27psi (SATA 3000) with the trigger pressed all the way to fluid, which ends up being about 4-5 psi higher than just air. For the final 'control coat' to even metallics, you turn the pressure down to 19psi and use a 90% overlap from about 12"-14" away. We've tried varying it and found out that (obviously) PPG knows their **** because you get all kinds of problems once you stray from the recommended pressures. With higher/lower pressures on the control coat from that far away you get tiny dry droplets that make 'out' fisheyes... not quite dirt, but smooth like fisheyes, just the opposite direction. It's weird. Air pressure is really important to pay attention to with water because it's so finicky.

I use a SATA 3000 B Digital with the WSB (water) tip for basecoat. With solvent systems the digital gauge is more of a 'bling' factor than actually useful. It's just a waste of money in my opinion. Most painters have multiple guns, each having a specific purpose... base, clear, primer, etc. so guns get set and never touched once you find the sweet spot. When working in a permanently set up booth you normally set your gun air pressure as high as it goes and then adjust the pressure with the wall air input system, so there's really no need for any gauge on the gun. With water you're constantly adjusting the pressure for different coats and it has to be dead accurate so the digital gauge is almost necessary.

For clear I use an Iwata LPH-400. There's not much to say about it except that I absolutely love it. I don't know whether it's the clear I use or the gun or a combination of both but I'm right on the money with how I lay out the clear with that gun. It's comfortable too, which is a big plus.

 

So you like to spray everything through your lph-400 and just swap tips...?

 

I mostly spray Nason, it is cheap and the clear is water like... but it is cheap and looks pretty decent, I do not plan on spraying waterbase paints anytime soon! A lot of guys complain about it taking forever to dry etc...

I was looking at the lph-400 and I don't mind paying 500+ for a gun to shoot base and clear out of but only if it is worth it!
You guys use the same gun for primer, base, and clear? I really don't want to mix the three in the same gun (I'm sure I don't have to explain why....)

I guess what I am looking for is reccomendations on the following:

-What's a good gun to buy for Primer and what size tips to shoot a filler primer with?

-What's a good gun to buy for Base Coats and what size tips to shoot it with?

-What's a good gun to buy for Clear Coats and what size tips to shoot it with?

 

Well the truth is that waterborne base coat is really easy to spray. The only reason it takes forever to dry for some people is because of humidity or lack of drying air flow. We use a ceiling mounted fan system and our corner dryers for big jobs, but most of the time I just walk around the painted part holding one of our SATA Dry Jets. Sometimes using water is incredibly fast and easy. Just yesterday I painted a spoiler in about 10 minutes, including all 3 coats of base, cleaning the gun, mixing the clear, and spraying it all out. when the humidity isn't crazy high you can just pound the basecoat on one coat after another, dry it in a minute or so, then clear it as soon as it hazes out and is dry.

I use separate guns for everything. I use one SATA 3000 B Digital for metallics, one identical 3000 B Digi for solids, one LPH-400 with a 1.3 tip for clear, my old beat to hell Binks MG-1 for primer, and I have a few heavy coating guns for truck bed coatings and spray poly fillers. I also have a couple SATA 2000 digitals floating around that are kind of 'shop guns' that we use any time we have to spray a single stage or solvent.

So no, different guns set up differently for each coating. I spray professionally so I can financially justify spending the money on all of them because it's what makes me money. For someone spraying on the side like you I'd recommend buying a nice base/clear gun like an LPH-400 or a SATA 3000 with a 1.3 tip and buy a separate primer gun with a 1.4 tip... cheap. A 1.4 tip will be fine for spraying any kind of primer surfacer. Buy a harbor freight gun if you have to, but just make sure you don't spray primer with your good guns.

 

I have a LPH-400 1.3 for base with the purple/orange/silver cap, another LPH-400 1.3 with the silver cap for clear, a Astro Evo 1.4 for sealer, and a Accuspray 1.8 for primer.

 

I live in Florida, so it's just about always hot and humid, wich sucks for waterborne...
I'll look into the SATA 3000 since you mentioned it!

Now what's the differance between the SATAjet 3000 B RP Digi and the SATAjet 3000 B HVLP Digi?

 

How you like it? A lot of people seem to like the lph-400!

 

Any input on the SATAjet 4000 B???

Looking into it, I think I might preffer the non digital and just add the digital air micrometer (retrofit) seems like it be more convenient to adj/ keep an eye on, compared to a display in the handle...

 

The Iwata is my favorite gun.

My friend has 3 of them, I have 2, they're totally worth the price!

 

ive got a SATAjet RP digital that I love. i think it is a 1.3 tip, ill have to double check when i get home

 

For a hobbyist there is no need for multiple guns for base/clear UNLESS you are using waterborne. I too have 2 lph-400's and am partial to iwatas. My work ONLY allows the painters to use SATA guns, so i suppose its a good thing im a body tech not a painter. Its all personal preference. Im not a fan of SATA guns...never have been. I have painted with the satajet 2000 and 3000 numerous times and would rather spray my other devilbiss gti over either sata.

 

Huh?? That's like telling a body guy he can only use Hutchins sanders or only Snap On air/hand tools. A Painter's gun is his only real tool and should be his own choice. A painter, like a body man, is an artist. I don't see how an employer can tell a painter what gun he's allowed to use. If the guy lays out beautiful color and glass clear with a Harbor Freight gun, you'd better believe I'm going to encourage his use of HF guns!

This really has me baffled, any idea why your employer would tell the painter that he's only allowed SATA guns? Unless a shop has a signed 'public appearance' contract with SATA, I can't see the requirement being enforced. Even SATA reps spray with different guns sometimes.

 

We were told that "corporate" and the paint mfg at the time (SW, now switching to PPG waterborne) came to a conclusion that sata guns feature the best transfer efficiency rate with the least amount of over spray waste. Its basically all what corporate has to say, and im sure there is more behind the scenes...but its all speculation. Even with the switch to PPG waterborne this week the painters had to get new guns (satajet 3000) for water base only.

 

Hmm.. weird. SATA guns are good, yes, but they're not the only ones with high transfer efficiency. I guess when you work for a corporation you just go along with what the big guys say. lol.

We also shot Sherwin and now switched to water. We've been shooting PPG water for a year now. I talked about it a little in my previous posts up there ^. I had to buy the SATA 3000 guns with the WSB tips too. They're real nice. You'll love shooting water if you ever get a chance to. Your painter(s) will have to re-learn a lot though. At the PPG training center in Glen Burnie, MD they told us flat out - forget everything you ever learned about spraying solvent. Spray water like water and don't think solvent or else you'll screw it up. lol. It's different, but nice once you spray it for a while.

 

i use an iwata lph400 with the xtremebasecoat orange cap 1.4mm...been using it for about 2 years now, use it for base and clear. its awesome, low cfm rate too.

 

So for a noob (me) wich SATA would be the best choice, a SATA jet 3000 B RP or a SATA jet 3000 B HVLP

Where is the best place to buy one?

 

i spray with a Sata Jet 3000 Rp everyday! love it to death. both the Rp and the HV are pretty easy to use i think but they are all that i have used on a day to day basis

 

Iwata makes great guns. SATA are the standard in most shops much like binks number 7 used to be. I like the sharpe lvp 2000 and 3000 aircaps for a hobbyists gun. Plus add a cheap stainless tip primer gun.