Earlex 5500

[Jerome Hanby]

Finally unpacked the Earlex and tried it out a little while ago. I sprayed some Seal Coat right from the can. Wow! This thing works great. Maybe all sprayers work this well and I just have nothing to compare it too (only spraying I've done was decades ago trying to paint an old car while I was in High School). Maybe finishing is about to be fun instead of the dreaded chore it's been previously.

[Mitch Rankin]

I am in the same boat, just unpacked mine, I hope this is the answer! Good luck.

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Nice! Glad it's working out for you so far. That unit has received a lot of good reviews. I hope you post another follow-up after you do some spraying with other finishes.

[Jerome Hanby]

Other finishes? Once I get shellac figured out I'm going to finish everything with it! Just kidding, but only other finish I see on my horizon is probably Brelan's Rockhard and for some reason I'm thinking you don't spray that, maybe I'm wrong about that...

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Jerome - just google "Breland Rock Hard HVLP" and you'll see that a lot of people do spray it.

I was thinking lacquer and maybe waterborne finishes. But if you're content to coat the world in shellac, go for it! :)

[Curt Harms]

Jerome - just google "Breland Rock Hard HVLP" and you'll see that a lot of people do spray it.

I was thinking lacquer and maybe waterborne finishes. But if you're content to coat the world in shellac, go for it! :)

Using waterborne & shellac together has something to recommend it. I was recently tasked with painting a louvered closet door with "acrylic latex" paint. I was not looking forward to having to sand all the slats, nooks and crannies after a coat of waterborne paint. Using the "shellac sticks to anything and anything stick to shellac" maxim, I shot the door with a coat of sealcoat diluted with DNA a little then diluted the paint with distilled water using the TLAR (that looks about right) method, maybe 5%. Sprayed two coats of thinned paint and got a nice smooth finish, no sanding, no grain raising or other nasties. The door appeared to be some sort of pine (made in Vietnam) so I'm pretty sure it would have been rough just spraying 'latex'.