Best way to spray mass production

[Rick Lucrezi]

I have plenty air for HVLP guns and have a Lex Aire unit. I bought the Lex Aire with a faulty gun so have not used it yet. I am cranking out small bottle display racks and need to spray quickly and cleanly with a finish that is smooth and requires no sanding. Willing to spend what it takes to get that. Also, have been using Shellac from the can due to its quick dry time. Costs more but have not found a technique that is smooth finish. The extra step to sand makes it a toss up. Open to suggestions there as well.

[Grant Wilkinson]

I use a Fuji HVLP and pre-cat lacquer. The finish is fine off the gun, and the between coat dry times of pre-cat are very short, too.

[Paul Grothouse]

If you really want to play in the big leagues you need a Kremlin Airmix system. If you spray a lot, the finish savings will pay for it quickly. It will use a lot less finish (and air) than any HVLP and it is a firehose in comparison.

You will need a pump, I would recommend a 10-14
http://www.kremlinrexson-sames.com/en/usa/products/produit/430-airmix_174_10_14_start_pump.html

and a gun, I would recommend the Xcite
http://www.kremlinrexson-sames.com/en/usa/products/produit/758-xcite_8482_airmix_174_gun.html

Get the local rep to bring one out to try.

It will cost you ~$1500

[Paul Grothouse]

I second a Pre-Cat Laquer as well, it's so easy to spray. Booth required, but you should have one for shellac as well.

[Todd Leback]

Or even a standard n/c lacquer, which is what I use mostly for furniture (pre-cat for cabinets). 1 coat of sanding sealer, sand, then at least two top coats. No need to sand between top coats, short re-coat time, and rubs out great.

Todd

[Jeff Duncan]

Paul, are you sure about that price? I though Kremlin sets were now over $3k? The Cat systems which are generally regarded as a nice runner up, sell for about $1600.

JeffD

[Rick Lucrezi]

the Kremlin looks exactly like what I need. Need to get my hands on one to try. As far as the finish, this is a display that sits on a shelf in a store. Not really a piece of furniture. The only criteria was it needed to seal the wood and be dusted without snagging a rag. The sheer number of displays and keeping costs fair, means every saved step saves money. I have it down to a minute and a half per display per coat, which includes handling, and a minute to sand between and after coats. 7000 displays that would require seal,sand, top, sand, is 291 hours. If i save one minute in sand thats 116 hours savings. Thats around 3500.

[Stephen Cherry]

the Kremlin looks exactly like what I need. Need to get my hands on one to try. As far as the finish, this is a display that sits on a shelf in a store. Not really a piece of furniture. The only criteria was it needed to seal the wood and be dusted without snagging a rag. The sheer number of displays and keeping costs fair, means every saved step saves money. I have it down to a minute and a half per display per coat, which includes handling, and a minute to sand between and after coats. 7000 displays that would require seal,sand, top, sand, is 291 hours. If i save one minute in sand thats 116 hours savings. Thats around 3500.

I like the looks of that Kremlin system also, and I like any kind of nice toy, but if you have been using a spray can with OK results, you may want to try a Home Depot or Harbor freight touchup gun. Maybe 20 bucks, and they work surprisingly well. I'm certainly not a spray expert, but have done some, and it seems to me that good light and air movement is the first step to getting the finish to smooth out.

[Daniel Berlin]

If you really want to play in the big leagues you need a Kremlin Airmix system. If you spray a lot, the finish savings will pay for it quickly. It will use a lot less finish (and air) than any HVLP and it is a firehose in comparison.

You will need a pump, I would recommend a 10-14
http://www.kremlinrexson-sames.com/en/usa/products/produit/430-airmix_174_10_14_start_pump.html

and a gun, I would recommend the Xcite
http://www.kremlinrexson-sames.com/en/usa/products/produit/758-xcite_8482_airmix_174_gun.html

Get the local rep to bring one out to try.

It will cost you ~$1500

Just to be fair, transfer efficiency, even on the higher end AAA like kremlin, is not better than HVLP. I would *not* expect any savings over HVLP in finish material.

There are even lab tests[1] showing this: http://www.epa.gov/etv/pubs/600etv06084s.pdf
Note the lab tests are from 2006. Transfer efficiency on HVLP guns has improved another 20% in the same tests since then, beating the airmix (I'm too lazy to go hunt this down).

However, people don't use AAA because it's going to use less finish than HVLP. They use it because it's *much* faster to get the same amount of material onto the the piece, so, as you say, it's a firehose in comparison.

[1] To be fair, all the lab tests are always done using robotic arms. Actual tests with humans show that improving transfer efficiency vs a conventional gun depends *much* more on the human's spraying technique than the equipment used. So it may be that for you, the spray gun technique you use works well for AAA but not HVLP. There have been large scale real world tests, for example, by the iowa waste reduction center, and it shows that unless video taped and trained on what they are doing wrong with HVLP guns , people tend to get only about ~49% efficiency out of HVLP, but after training, get ~61% (They get about ~40% with conventional guns, so you can see technique training improved the result more than the gun change did!. There are similar results for AAA, FWIW.)