Spray Finishing Lesson

[Phil Winn]

My adult son is looking for someone to teach him about spray finishing. He currently owns a generator, a HVLP Gravity gun, and a small suction (pot under) detail gun. If I may say so, he is quite accomplished at the furniture building aspect, but is looking to learn about spray finishing. Various types of finishes would be ideal, but not necessary. He lives Northwest of Boston, but would be willing to drive an hour or two if necessary. Not sure how long it would take to teach him some basics and tips? Any weekday, weekends, day, or nights. Obviously, he will be willing to compensate, or make a donation, including to SMC. Ideally, lessons starting sooner, are better than later; he currently is working on a project, and needs to prefinish/apply finish to some pieces before continuing on to the next step.
Any suggestions? Volunteers?
Thanks,
Phil

[Larry Fox]

I am in PA and would certainly do a demo if he were closer. However, I don't think personalized instruction is really necessary. This and some practice is probably all he needs.

http://www.homesteadfinishingproducts.com/htdocs/publications2.htm

One thing that he can do is practice with some water in the gun to get a feel for all the knobs and that capability of the gun. Once he has that down, practice with some real finish on some scrap to see how the various finishes handle. It really is not that hard at all and he should be up and running really quickly.

Another thing that I can recommend is a wet film thickness gauge as this will take some of the guesswork out of it. It is really helpful when having problems if you can be specific when seeking help. For example, better to be able to say that he was putting down a coat that was 2.5 mils thick as opposed to his saying that his coat was pretty thick.

His success rate will definitely be higher also if his environment is setup properly with some way to deal with the overspray and his lighting is adequate. He wants a fairly strong raking incandescent light so he can keep an eye on his "wet line" to avoid things like jail bars and missed spots.

Another thing to practice on something other than your recently completed highboy is spraying vertical surfaces - it is a bit tricky but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.

He should also TRY to make some mistakes so he knows what they look like and under what circumstances they occur. He should try for a dry shoot, orange-peel, runs, surface contamination, etc. Mistakes will be made along the line, there is a lot to be said for knowing what caused them and how to back yourself out of them.

Whatever he does he needs to take the safety aspect very seriously and setup / plan accordingly. Spraying is something of a game changer as all those nasty solvents are floating around in the air. Some of which are very flammable and I consider ALL of them dangerous to inhale so he needs to protect his lungs, eyes and hands (at the very least) when spraying.

[David Christopher]

Phil, Mohawk paints offers DVD and hands on training

http://www.mohawk-finishing.com/training/workshops.aspx