Need an economical sprayer

[Shawn Stennett]

I am going to paint the inside of my house and need a sprayer that can spray nice finishes for furniture and cabinets as well. What can I get that won't completly blow the budget but get something that I can use for everyhing that I want? Woodcraft has a Earlex Spray Station on sale, is this any good? What to do?

[Don Alexander]

its a heckuvalot easier to roll paint inside an occupied/furnished house requires a whole lot less time and effort masking off windows / floors/ appliances etc

[Shawn Stennett]

I hate rolling paint, I would rather spen my time taping, lol. I also hate seeing brush strokes.

[Jamie Buxton]

Generally, latex house paints are sprayed with an airless sprayer. It can handle the high viscosity of those paints. Cabinet finishes are thinner, and are generally sprayed with other kinds of guns, like the HVLP turbines. I've never met a sprayer than does both well.

[Frederick Rowe]

Some of the more powerful HVLP turbine systems will spray heavy bodied materials like latex paint. The least expensive system would be in the $850 range.

I would advise against using a HVLP gun for that purpose though. It will be slow going with frequent refills. Unless you also spring for a pressure pot, your arm will be meat rope after an hour of spraying.

Rent an airless sprayer and apply from your 5 gallon paint bucket. With some planning and a day of masking and setting up, you will get your paint up fast and even.

For cabinets and later furniture finishing projects, HVLP turbine kits make a great choice. The Earlex gets pretty good reviews, but plan on getting up on the learning curve. Jeff Jewitt's book/dvd on spraying is a great place to start. It addresses all aspects of spray finishing. Lots of beginners are getting excellent results with a little practice.

[Dan Bowman]

You won't believe how much aerosol a paint sprayer produces, and using one inside will coat everything with paint dust. I don't like rolling paint either, but I'd rather roll than clean for days.

[Dean Ousterhout]

We painted two houses 2 years ago, one we were moving out of, and the one we were moving into. I have been rolling for 50 years, started when I was 5 helping the parents... :) so... I decided to try spraying... Here are my observations:



I bought a good sprayer, a Titan 440i
we were replacing ALL the floor coverings so paint on the floors did not matter
The order of spraying is:

trim, mask the inside of the windows
mask the trim
spray the walls
tape plastic from the top of the walls
spray ceiling

we goofed on the first house and did not do the trim first. We had to do it all by hand and it was a pain. On the second house we did the trim first and it worked like a charm...
On the first room I sprayed I made a few mistakes. I put the paint on too think and had some runs.
I didn't have the overlap quite right and had "thin" spots.
OK... it is a real skill to be able to spray well. Plan on going lite, and put on two coats... My mom always told me that when we rolled the paint so I was expecting it.
The first room filled the air with paint so bad I that after one wall I couldn't see the next wall. My goggles were covered with spray, the air was thick... wow... so... I used my rainbow water filtered vaccum and it pulled the paint out of the air and it was like a miracle. You have to change the water in the vaccum often.... but I would never buy in to painting with the sprayer without it.
Ok... I retired the rainbow after the second house, but you cna pick them up for $100-200 and it is well worth it.
I used a medium sticky tape in the first room and when I pulled the tape... guess what? yup... some paint came off with the tape. OUCH.


Ok... so those were the negatives and difficult parts. Taping and preparing took my wife many hours while I was at work.. But, when I came home... I could do a room in 15 minutes. Then it would take 30 minutes to clean the machine.

I did the entire upstairs ceiling of a 2400 sq house in about 45 minutes.

Using a sprayer is really fast, and once you get the hang of it... the finish is excellent. Of course, I think I probably used more paint than I would have rolling, but I really can't prove it. That sprayer would put out a lot of paint fast.

I am not sure I will use the sprayer the next time because we now have nice floor coverings. But, if I could be sure that I had good covering for the floors, I would really think about it because it is fast and the result is very nice.


Good luck...

[Chris Harry]

I think I would rent a Titan from HD or a local paint store (do Sherwin Williams/BMoore stores rent sprayers?) for the house

Then buy yourself a nice HVLP turbine setup for woodworking finishes.

I cant see a sprayer thats good at both painting a house ("rough work") and painting nice projects ("finesse work"). I suppose its possible, but not probable.

I actually dont mind roller painting when Im doing my house. 90% of the work for me is the prep anyway (drywall patching, taping, etc), so at that point spraying wouldnt save that much time, along with the fact that paint dust could/would get everywhere.

[Chris Padilla]

A powerful turbine can spray latex and thinner finishes just fine. It is all in the tips.

My Apollo1000 (4-stage turbine) handles either one with ease and lays it down very nicely.

However all that said, I would roll the interior of a house. Spraying does put a cloud of fine paint particles all over the place. I'm far from a pro painter but I can roll and not have any marks. Get a high-quality roller and either use high-quality paint or if you go the cheaper borg route, dump in some Floetrol--it really really helps.

[Phil Phelps]

A powerful turbine can spray latex and thinner finishes just fine. It is all in the tips.

My Apollo1000 (4-stage turbine) handles either one with ease and lays it down very nicely.

However all that said, I would roll the interior of a house. Spraying does put a cloud of fine paint particles all over the place. I'm far from a pro painter but I can roll and not have any marks. Get a high-quality roller and either use high-quality paint or if you go the cheaper borg route, dump in some Floetrol--it really really helps.

Chris, I beg to differ. Floetrol will not add quality to inferior paint. Floetrol was made to help latex paints lay out better and hasten the drag while brushing. It's a wonderful product for brushing. I have experimented with Floetrol in the spray room for years, and can't see any sugnificant improvement. It's not a thinner or reducer, but an extender and enables latex and acrylic paints lay out smoother. Penetrol does the same for oil base paints.

[Phil Phelps]

Sahwn, I believe you should rethink this project. One sprayer won't do all and it shouldn't be used to paint your walls and ceiling. The top pros I know don't use spray equipment in most residential homes. You are taking on a very large project and you'll see the results everyday. This is a major project so, why not dig in and do it right? You need to buy your paint and get profesional advise from a real paint store. I'd be glad to give you some tips, but I'm looking at about a thousand words to begin. Good luck to you.

[Don Alexander]

i've painted alot of houses inside and out and you couldn't give me a sprayer to paint with its SLOWER, messier ,uses more paint AND a lot more expensive to get equipped to paint

yes i said slower remember that painting is more than just getting the paint on the wall/ ceiling/ trim its the entire process you have to go through from patching and prepping the surfaces to final cleanup so while the time spent actually applying paint may be somewhat less the total project time is way more with a lot more opportunity to have a mess where you really don't want one

buy good quality paint , roller/s , brush/es take your other half out for a really nice evening with a small portion of the cash and time you save :)

[Chris Padilla]

Chris, I beg to differ. Floetrol will not add quality to inferior paint. Floetrol was made to help latex paints lay out better and hasten the drag while brushing. It's a wonderful product for brushing. I have experimented with Floetrol in the spray room for years, and can't see any sugnificant improvement. It's not a thinner or reducer, but an extender and enables latex and acrylic paints lay out smoother. Penetrol does the same for oil base paints.

Phil,

I fully agree with you. I didn't mean to imply it added "quality" to an inferior paint. All I know is that the inferior paint paints "better" when I add the Floetrol and so I use it all the time. For us non-pros, Floetrol helps IMO.

As far as spraying goes, I still use it when I spray but mostly because the Floetrol is already IN the can (because I probably added it when I rolled). I figure if it helps brushing, it can help spraying...or at least it doesn't hurt it. :)

I'll defer to your experience, of course! :D

[Lex Boegen]

I bought a large airless sprayer for painting my house, both inside and out. I also picked up an accessory for it--a roller extension. This lets me feed paint to the roller from a five-gallon bucket, so there's no frequent refilling of paint trays or spilling them when I step on them. I haven't used it yet though, because I bought it on impulse--it was deeply discounted because someone had bought it new, used it and returned it to the store. It was refurbed at the factory and carries the same warranty as new, so I couldn't walk away from it. Now that the weather is getting cooler and drier here in Florida, I plan on repainting the exterior of my house next month.

[Jason Roehl]

1. There are air-assisted airless sprayers available that do an excellent job at both fine finishes and heavier materials. The downside is that you are looking at probably about $2k to get in the game.

2. Most airless sprayers will do a pretty good job with fine finishes if you use a fine finish tip. The downside is that you would need (want) one with electronic pressure control so that there is not a wide pressure band. A standard piston-driven airless sprayer will have about a 400 PSI pressure drop before it cycles. That's not a problem spraying interior/exterior latex at 2000 PSI, but it is a problem when you need to spray a fine finish at 1200 PSI. Another con is that there is more material waste on smaller items (like when you might spray a chair leg), but they are good for spraying carcass-type furniture and built-ins.

3. If you can't see in the room after spraying one wall, you have the pressure turned up WAY too high, and are probably holding the gun too far from the surface. While "the book" will tell you to hold an airless 12" from the surface being sprayed, my experience (tens of thousands of gallons of paint through airless sprayers) says that 6" is better, but you have to move a little quicker.

4. Large sprayed surfaces (interior/exterior) typically need to be back-rolled or back-brushed after spraying.

5. Spraying is faster, particularly the larger the job and the higher the quality desired. There's a learning curve on masking that may slow one down at first, but once one gets the hang of it (and has the proper tools), it's not even close, especially when trim and/or ceilings are involved. Even when we're doing rental turnover (apartments), if the landlord is doing a drastic paint change, we have masked and sprayed at least most of the cut-in, along with spraying the ceilings. Rolling the walls is mostly a toss-up, as with an 18" roller, I can roll a typical 4-bedroom apartment in about an hour per coat (I'm in a college town, so turnover is more about fast and cheap, not so much about good).

(pro painter by day)