School me on airless sprayers..........

[Larry Edgerton]

I am thinking of switching to Baltic birch for most cabinet construction, getting away from pre-finished, and would like to know more about fine finish airlesses. Not looking to spend thousands, do have a good Graco dealer close by but that is not carved in stone.

Give me you impressions, recommendations, and maybe a tip or two. I know nothing, so lets start there.:D

[Tom M King]

Buy a Graco with their best gun. The pump is not as important as the gun, unless you need to spray more than 3 gallons a minute. Some years ago, I bought one of their air assisted airless rigs. The air assist blows out the hard streams on the sides of the fan if you are using a low pressure. I bought several sizes of their fine finish tips when I bought that rig. It worked great.

Soon after that, I needed to replace my 20some year old gun for the airless rig. I decided to get the best one that also took the Fine Finish tips. The first time I used the old pump with the new gun, I put the AAA rig up for sale, and it sold quickly. The Fine Finish tips, and gun that accepts them, lets you spray at a much lower pressure, which is really nice for work inside, and gives much more control. You still need to plan each stroke ahead though, and make sure you aren't going to stumble, or bump your elbow. Any hesitation results in lot more work to fix a run, or sag.

Airless is FAST. You have to move, but it can do a great job. AAA is not as fast as regular airless, but will still make you never want to use an HVLP rig again.

If you're only doing cabinets, and furniture, I'd suggest an AAA. If you're also painting houses, or anything larger than cabinets, get the airless.

It's been some number of years since I've looked at any of the equipment, so what I've said here may have changed by now. Airless is much better now, and even less expensive, than it was 15 years ago. There should be plenty of youtube videos showing how to use all the variants.

[Wayne Lomman]

I agree with Tom. My experience is similar. For what you will be doing, an air assisted airless will be ideal and Graco do good ones. If it's all gets too pricey, you could consider a diaphragm pump but start with air assisted airless. Cheers

[Larry Edgerton]

This is why we need a pro corner. I posted it in General so a few pros would see it, the only people that would use such an animal, but now its lost in no mans land.

Thanks Tom and Wayne for your observations. I have a friend that uses one exclusively, but he makes log furniture and only uses one finish. How hard are they to clean between finishes? I looked at the hand helds, but they look pretty clumsy to me.

Thanks, Larry

[Tom M King]

Use water to push out waterbourne/ water based finishes, and mineral spirits, or your choice, for others. Clean the tip, and tip holder that screws off the gun by hand, and you're done. Amount of pushing fluid depends on the hose. Turn the tip around, and push what you have in the pump and hose into another container until you see the "pusher fluid", and keep that, then run the cleaner through the system until it runs clear. If I'm in a city, the cleaning water goes down a sink with running water, and at home, I spray it out on the grass by the shop, and it's gone with the next grass cutting.

Water is a LOT easier than dealing with thinner, so I can't remember the last non-waterbased that I sprayed with the airless rig. I keep a cheap HVLP specifically for oil based primer.

I keep a 1/4"x25' hose for inside work, and a couple of hundred feet (in three pieces that can be combined) of 3/8" for outside. The smaller, shorter hose makes for much quicker cleanup.

If you are spraying water based over mulitple coats, or days, take the tip and end off, clean them between coats, and drop the gun in a bucket of water until the next session. Put a piece of Saran Wrap on top of the finish in the container you're sucking it out of. There is no air in the system, so that way, nothing sets up anywhere except maybe a little on the pickup tube.

I put a drop of oil on the tip, and pump saver in the pump for long term storage. I think I bought the pump I'm using in the late '80's, but may have been the early '90's. You have to put pump oil in once in a while, but it's easy.

The handhelds are more clumsy, and don't do as good of a job, without a lot of experience, as a real airless rig.

If you will be spraying things other than cabinets, you will want several extension wands, that come in a bunch of different lengths, and go between the gun and the tip holder, so you can stand on the floor, and paint a tall ceiling, or paint a roof without bending over. For cabinets, spray them before you put the backs on. Overspray is not a problem, like with air rigs, but you do get some bounceback, depending on pressure.

edited to add: The handheld ones are a lot more trouble to clean, or at least, mine is. Mine is Graco's first version of the battery powered sprayers. I haven't looked at the newer models, but I have to take mine completely apart, including the gasket that goes between the head, and the cup. It takes me longer to clean the unit, than to spray what I spray with it. I haven't used it in years.

[Larry Edgerton]

Thanks for taking the time to write this Tom. I like to hear opinions/tips from people I know are the real deal and not corporate shills. So again, Thank you.

Larry

[Doug Hobkirk]

Buy a Graco with their best gun. The pump is not as important as the gun, unless you need to spray more than 3 gallons a minute. Some years ago, I bought one of their air assisted airless rigs. The air assist blows out the hard streams on the sides of the fan if you are using a low pressure. I bought several sizes of their fine finish tips when I bought that rig. It worked great.

Soon after that, I needed to replace my 20some year old gun for the airless rig. I decided to get the best one that also took the Fine Finish tips. The first time I used the old pump with the new gun, I put the AAA rig up for sale, and it sold quickly. The Fine Finish tips, and gun that accepts them, lets you spray at a much lower pressure, which is really nice for work inside, and gives much more control. You still need to plan each stroke ahead though, and make sure you aren't going to stumble, or bump your elbow. Any hesitation results in lot more work to fix a run, or sag.

Airless is FAST. You have to move, but it can do a great job. AAA is not as fast as regular airless, but will still make you never want to use an HVLP rig again.

If you're only doing cabinets, and furniture, I'd suggest an AAA. If you're also painting houses, or anything larger than cabinets, get the airless.

It's been some number of years since I've looked at any of the equipment, so what I've said here may have changed by now. Airless is much better now, and even less expensive, than it was 15 years ago. There should be plenty of youtube videos showing how to use all the variants.



Use water to push out waterbourne/ water based finishes, and mineral spirits, or your choice, for others. Clean the tip, and tip holder that screws off the gun by hand, and you're done. Amount of pushing fluid depends on the hose. Turn the tip around, and push what you have in the pump and hose into another container until you see the "pusher fluid", and keep that, then run the cleaner through the system until it runs clear. If I'm in a city, the cleaning water goes down a sink with running water, and at home, I spray it out on the grass by the shop, and it's gone with the next grass cutting.

Water is a LOT easier than dealing with thinner, so I can't remember the last non-waterbased that I sprayed with the airless rig. I keep a cheap HVLP specifically for oil based primer.

I keep a 1/4"x25' hose for inside work, and a couple of hundred feet (in three pieces that can be combined) of 3/8" for outside. The smaller, shorter hose makes for much quicker cleanup.

If you are spraying water based over multiple coats, or days, take the tip and end off, clean them between coats, and drop the gun in a bucket of water until the next session. Put a piece of Saran Wrap on top of the finish in the container you're sucking it out of. There is no air in the system, so that way, nothing sets up anywhere except maybe a little on the pickup tube.

I put a drop of oil on the tip, and pump saver in the pump for long term storage. I think I bought the pump I'm using in the late '80's, but may have been the early '90's. You have to put pump oil in once in a while, but it's easy.

The handhelds are more clumsy, and don't do as good of a job, without a lot of experience, as a real airless rig.

If you will be spraying things other than cabinets, you will want several extension wands, that come in a bunch of different lengths, and go between the gun and the tip holder, so you can stand on the floor, and paint a tall ceiling, or paint a roof without bending over. For cabinets, spray them before you put the backs on. Overspray is not a problem, like with air rigs, but you do get some bounceback, depending on pressure.

edited to add: The handheld ones are a lot more trouble to clean, or at least, mine is. Mine is Graco's first version of the battery powered sprayers. I haven't looked at the newer models, but I have to take mine completely apart, including the gasket that goes between the head, and the cup. It takes me longer to clean the unit, than to spray what I spray with it. I haven't used it in years.


Sheesh! What an outstanding reply - LOTS of detail. I've been curious about spraying so I read the thread, expecting short replies. Instead I find replies that I'm printing out to stick in my "finishing" folder.

Thanks much, Tom. Your replies here are above and beyond, IMO. Your "tips" (the second reply") is superb. So thanks from a voyeur novice. I'd guess I will not get into spraying because I don't do enough, but you just made me more confident that I will have some real expert advice if I do.


PS - I now need to better figure out the relationship between AAA, airless, and HVLP. "Novice," like I said.

[Tom M King]

You don't need airless, or AAA for hobbyist work.

Airless is just what the name says. The fiinish is pushed out by pressure, and is not really dependent on the viscosity of the finish. You just use a tip with a larger orifice, the thicker the finish/paint. You have to crank up the pressure until you get full atomazation of the whole fan. Too low of a pressure will give you hard streams on each side of the fan, which makes it impossible to not have raised lines (at least) in your application.

Air Assisted Airless adds compressed air to the airless to blow out those hard edges, so you can spray at a lower pressure. It's easier to apply a thin finish with one of these. You can spray any finish with the airless that you can with the AAA, but the AAA is more forgiving of the human doing the spraying.

HVLP is high volume low pressure. It uses air to get the finish to atomize as it comes out of the gun. This is very similar to the old type of spray painting that uses comressed air at higher pressure, but you get a lot less overspray in the air, as well as bounceback off the surface. HVLP is the most forgiving, since it is also the slowest of the three we're talking about. The more stages your air pump for the HVLP has (not too much different than a vacuum cleaner running in reverse) the thicker the finish you can use, as well as the better atomazation you get with a thinner finish.

These are just simplified descriptions about how the different sprayers work. I'm sure there are many youtube videos that explain in more detail.

One fact that is hard to get around, with any of these, is that the more expensive the rig, the easier it is to do good work. It's much easier to do a good job with a four stage HVLP, than with a 2 stage, regardless of what finish you're using. It's easy to go too cheap, and never be able to do any kind of pro level spraying.

[Tom M King]

Larry, I sprayed a room today with my airless rig-first time in several years, and was remembering you asking about it in this thread. I thought of a few other things while I was doing it, if you're interested. Did you buy a rig?

[Justin Ludwig]

Tom's advice is spot on. I own a Graco 495 PC Pro airless and a 9.5 Turbine HVLP - all told I'm vest $2900 between the two and I bought the HVLP brand new at $500 off retail on eBay.

If I had to do it all over again I would have invested in a portable AAA. The new Graco's can shoot in full airless mode. So you get 2 for 1.

I shoot only WB products through my airless. If I had to shoot solvent on that level, I'd just buy a second rig as I wouldn't risk cross-contamination. I know guys that have 2 hoses for their rigs and just rinse the pumps so save money on rinsing X feet of hose.

As Tom said, airless rigs are all about pressure and tips. Holy-moley are they fast. They lay the paint and lay it fast. Give me a 515 tip and you can't back roll fast enough to keep up with me on a wall. I've sprayed Benwood WB poly with a FF310 and FF210 tip with superb results. The pressure when spraying that is around 900psi. Spraying ADVANCE on cabinet doors, I'll use a FF310 or FF311 tip and my pressure is 1800-2000. When I painted my spray booth room I used a latex enamel and a 515, which took 2400psi!

Like anything else, it's all about practice and learning your product.

Spend thousands and be glad you did. Promise. My airless paid for itself in the first job. My 9.5 turbine paid for itself in 2 jobs.

Graco's AAA will pay for itself in 2 medium sized jobs.

[Tom M King]

Justin, Have you tried the FFLP tips? This job was my first time trying them, and I think it's a good possibility that they make AAA not necessary any more. I owned a Graco AAA rig for a short time, but as soon as they started selling the FF tips for airless, I sold the AAA as fast as I could, and have never missed it. The LP tips are a whole other jump forward, maybe even more of one than the FF tips made.

[Justin Ludwig]

Justin, Have you tried the FFLP tips? This job was my first time trying them, and I think it's a good possibility that they make AAA not necessary any more. I owned a Graco AAA rig for a short time, but as soon as they started selling the FF tips for airless, I sold the AAA as fast as I could, and have never missed it. The LP tips are a whole other jump forward, maybe even more of one than the FF tips made.

Good to know! I haven't been keeping up with the tech advances. I'm building an entertainment add-on today that will be shot with ADVANCE using my airless. I'll order a tip (unless the .00001% chance my local store carries one).

[Justin Ludwig]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnCztEg4_XA

Heck yeah! Can't wait to try it. Thanks again!

[Tom M King]

Chances are not likely that a local store would have the FFLP tips. The LP tips use WAY less pressure than the other ones, so there is almost no bounceback. Fan width, and orifice size are the same as the FF tips. I ordered mine off ebay. I ended up with a 310, and a 514 for that room, and sprayed the whole thing with SW Pro Classic. The 514 was the largest tip I could find in a FFLP. I felt like I was putting clearcoat on a car, as could put on several coats right on top of each other.

They say the LP allows maybe half of what you used to use. I'm not sure about that. My pump is so old that it doesn't have a gauge. I ordered a Titan gauge, and put it on before I started. It has a shaded area for the Titan tips. I started with it in that range, and tested on the plastic masking the windows. I ended up with it a little over the Titan range, with a 1/4-25 foot hose, but the room was zipped up, and I was using supplied air, so I went right to spraying as soon as I got the fan right, so didn't notice what the pressure was exactly. It was WAY less than it used to be.

[Justin Ludwig]

I had to buy 5 gallon of precat today and I checked, the only tip they carried was a FF 414. I ordered a FFLP 313 tip on Amazon. I have a spec home coming up that I'll need to shoot so I guess I should order a 515 also. A great resource for parts and info is portlandcompressor.com. I've purchased 95% of my spray equipment and supplies through them. Great customer service and highly knowledgeable.

The thought of spraying a home's worth of cabinet doors without having to stop and load the siphon cup on my Graco 9.5 has me almost giddy. What a time saver without all the overspray (I hope)!

[Tom M King]

13 might be a little big for a 3, but it should spray okay. Pressure with my 310 didn't need to be moved at all for a 514-both FFLP. Start at a little over half the pressure you used before, and it might take a little more to get rid of any hard lines on the edges of the fan. They lay down, a beautifully light fan of spray, with almost no bounceback/overspray.

For those that don't know, watching from the sidelines, the first number in an airless tip size is half the width of the fan at 12", and the second two numbers are the size of the orifice. The orifice is made from carbide, and lasts maybe through 50 gallons of spray. For a smaller fan, you need a smaller orifice, to spray the same material, because the narrower fan doesn't demand the same volume of paint as a wider fan-the reason I said a 13 (orifice) might be a little large for a 3 (6" fan width). You can use almost any combination, but it makes a difference in coverage, and how fast you have to move the gun.

To spray cabinets with an airless, you used to need to get your adrenaline up like you were getting ready to run a football play. The FF (fine finish) tips eased that off a Lot, and now add the LP (low pressure) to that, and it makes it a real pleasure to use, without the demand for adrenaline.

[Tom M King]

Justin, I remembered that I forgot to say to make sure you have a clean screen in your gun before using the LP tips. You can't get away with one that's not, like you can when you're using high pressure.

[Justin Ludwig]

Justin, I remembered that I forgot to say to make sure you have a clean screen in your gun before using the LP tips. You can't get away with one that's not, like you can when you're using high pressure.
I clean everything completely after every use. The only thing on my system that's dirty is the hose exterior. I attribute this habit to my Navy aviation days as a painter when we had put the guns up looking like new or get our butts chewed out.

I always rinse and my screens and use a pipe brush to get them like new then blow them out with air.

Latex paints I use a 60 mesh and WB polys (and future use of lacquers) I use the 100 mesh.

[Chris Fairbanks]

This is why we need a pro corner. I posted it in General so a few pros would see it, the only people that would use such an animal, but now its lost in no mans land.

Thanks Tom and Wayne for your observations. I have a friend that uses one exclusively, but he makes log furniture and only uses one finish. How hard are they to clean between finishes? I looked at the hand helds, but they look pretty clumsy to me.

Thanks, Larry

Larry, i would like to see a pro corner as well. I spend most my online time here on SMC but I also spend time reading the pro finishing forum (along with the cabinet making forum) over at woodweb. I am I guess what you can call an avvid enthusiast when it comes to wood working and own a Graco AAA. Since I don’t do this professional a lot of the posts on woodweb are unrelated but there is a lot of good information there on other finishing vendors and techniques I like. I don’t think I am allowed to post other forum links so if you cannot find the forum hit me up on PM.

[Mitchell Ristine]

I bought a graco x17 for painting my cabinets. I "played" with the sprayer A LOT before actual use on my cabinets. They move quite a bit of paint. I used SW Pro Classic. I bought a FFLP 312 tip for the job. I used a bigger regular 514 for my ceilings and latex paint. I tried the 514 with the SWPC on test material and the results were ... not good.

In between coats I just dropped the gun a pail of mineral spirits. When storing, I would flush the system with lost of mineral spirits. Then I pumped spirits back into the machine for storage.

Also (and I learned this after a clog) STRAIN YOUR PAINT. I added a little penetrol to the paint before straining. I don't know if that helped, because I never sprayed without it.

I played with the pressure to get it just right. IIRC, it was about 75%.

Once I got a good technique down, it went really quick. I got really nice results.

I am NOT a pro. Just a guy who wanted to paint his cabinets.

[Tom M King]

I recently did a whole room with Satin Pro Classic. It had so many windows in it that the owner decided it would be fine not to put so much time into masking, or cutting in. I used a FFLP 310 for the jamb extensions, and casing, and a FFLP 514 for the walls. I was just guessing when I ordered thos, since these were the first LP tips I've used, but believe I guessed right. The whole job came out great, and everyone who has seen it says they've never seen a better quality paint job in a house. The whole thing, including the cathedral ceiling looks like a nice cabinet job.

One thing I did, that I will say is worth doing, for using LP tips, was to put a pressure gauge on the hose at the pump. The gauge is made by Titan, and has a colored zone for their LP tips. I was just a little above that zone, and the pressure was perfect, with a 1/4" 25 foot hose, for both tips, without any adjustment. The gauge lets you get in the ballpark to start with, without spraying a quart of paint to find the sweet spot. It seems like to me that LP tips take a very little over half the pressure required by regular tips, but I didn't do any testing-just the way it feels to me.

I bought one of those Graco AAA rigs when they first came out, and sold my Apollo HVLP top of the line turbo rig after the first time I used it. Some time after that, Graco started selling the RacX tip guards that took the Fine Finish tips (originally designed and made for the AAA rigs) for regular airless. The first time I used one of them on the airless rig, I sold the AAA rig as soon as I could.

I am a pro, but do so many things in addition to painting, that I don't do that much of it, so it had been a while since I had done any painting with the FF tips. In the meantime, Graco came out with the low pressure tips. This was the first time I had used them, and this ain't your Father's airless spraying any more. It's close to the same control you get with HVLP, but at multiple times the speed. The fan is amazingly soft, and controllable, with almost not bounceback. If I was spraying cabinets I made with it, I would still leave the backs off until after finishing though, but I did that with HVLP too.

Back to add to Larry's original question, for someone like him, who is a pro, but new to airless, the only reason I can think of to get one of the bigger rigs is if you are going to spray wall surfacer with it, as well as regular painting, and finishing. Surfacer is a spray on Level 5 drywall finish that leaves a perfect surface. It requires that you move a LOT of material, because using the largest tip you can find, like a 721 or 725, the gun is held about 30 inches off the wall, and you can't hardly believe how thick you can lay it on. It makes a not quite right sheetrock wall into perfection. The cost of doing this is a substantial investment though, beyond the 150 bucks per 5 gallons for the surfacer.

Don't try spraying surfacer with a smaller pump unless you at least can change out the pump balls to ceramic. Surfacer has an unbelieveable amount of solids, and will wear out a regular pump. I almost was talked into it for this room, but have sheetrock down to a science too (even though I hate it), so didn't really need the surfacer.

[Justin Ludwig]

I used my 310 for the first time this week. I'm using a Graco 495PC Pro airless rig with a 50' hose (I need to buy a 25' for my shop use). The 310 sprayed amazingly well and I was not blown away by the blow back and overspray. I shot ADVANCE semigloss on a cabinet (without the back) and a couple doors.

Maybe its because I was using a 50' hose, but normal pressure for a FF 210 or 310 tip is 1900-2100 for my rig. I have an integrated pressure gauge. The FFLP 310 required 1300-1400 to shoot without getting "tails". The only thing I didn't like is that it sprayed a fan like a 210. I played with my distance off the face and couldn't get a 310 fan size and proper coat if I backed off far enough to get a normal 310FF tip fan.

Tom,

Have you noticed a difference in the fan sizes? It's possible (though unlikely) I have a mislabeled tip. Regardless, I love the tips and will be ordering a variety of sizes. I may even sell my Graco 9.5 HVLP.

[Tom M King]

I think you're right about the fan width. I didn't measure the width, and have thrown away the plastic I had over the windows in that room, which is where I tested the pressure before real spraying began. Pressure sounds about right too. I never took time to read the gauge exactly, and just started spraying once it was right. The correct pressure was right above the black colored zone (which is supposed to be right for Titan LP tips) in the Titan analog gauge.

edited to add: Thinking more about it, I think maybe the FFLP tips are more accurate in width than the older tips. I think the older tips were more generous with the fan width, but the FFLP tips are probably closer to stated width. I don't think the 310 width was over 6 inches, but probably not much less. It worked fine for crown molding, jamb extensions, and casing.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/613Uanl3fzL._SX425_.jpg

[Justin Ludwig]

Thought I post some results of changing tips.

I was initially spraying BM's ADVANCE with a 310 FFLP - took 12-1300 PSI and I was getting a 3-4 inch fan, not a 4-6 inch. After drying, I didn't have quite the dry film thickness I wanted for a single coat. I scuff sanded everything with an ultra fine gray 3M scotch-brite.

I put a 313 FFLP tip in the gun. I only had to increase the pressure to 13-1400. I did achieve a 4-6" fan with no tails. It coated much better than the 310 tip - which is to be expected in hindsight because ADVANCE is quite viscous. I sprayed a cabinet that had both vertical and horizontal pieces and had no runs or sags after "criss-crossing" the spray pattern.

For those that want as much info as possible:

Graco 495 PC Pro Airless
RAC X gun with 313 FFLP tip
"60" mesh in the gun (clean)
"60" mesh in the pump (clean)
50 foot hose
1300-1400 PSI setting
1 tall and handsome guy spraying :D

YMMV.