First time shooting paint

[Patrick Kane]

I have an older Fuji Minimite 4 that sprays clear finishes with ease. I sprayed an oil enamel paint and primer once on a powermatic 72 that has a slight orange peel texture to it. Im unsure if that is because i didnt thin the paint, or if it had more to do with the temperature being in the 40s in my garage at the time. Now, i need to spray a few floating shelves white, and need them to be flawless. I know very little about paints, and planned on leaning on the guys at sherwin williams for advice, but also wanted to check here too. Im painting poplar.

[Jim Becker]

You may very well need to thin an oil based enamel to flow properly through your gun, depending on the gun setup. Oil based paints through a sprayer is often a "thankless task" because of the sticky overspray and long try times. Spraying is better suited to faster drying finishes including water borne products. Water borne finishes can't be "thinned" very much (5-10% max), however, so proper gun setup is critical. Consider using water borne finishes that are designed for spraying, such as those from Target Coatings, General Finishes, etc. That said, the proper gun setup can spray most things you can buy at Sherwin Williams, including ProClassic. Do note that most SW stores/folks tend to know a lot about spraying solvent based products but in my experience, they haven't been as knowledgable about their water borne finishes. Maybe it's my local store; but I suspect not.

[Jamie Buxton]

Use General Finishes pigmented Enduro Poly in the white version. It sprays very well, and is quite durable in use. Like Jim says, a coat dries to touch in less than ten minutes, and can be sanded in a couple of hours. It is waterborne, so gun clean-up is easy. I spray it right out of the can with a 3-stage turbine and a Fuji HVLP gun. My usual schedule is to spray two coats, wait a couple hours, de-nib, and spray one or two more coats.

[Edward Dyas]

Most of the time orange peal is caused by the finish not being thinned enough. It can also be caused by holding the gun too far away. The 40 degree weather would only help the orange peal problem. It's usually very hot weather that increases the problem with orange peal.

[Patrick Kane]

In my experience with enduro var, it only orange peels on me when its cold. Im not sure about the oil paint, but it makes sense that it wasnt thinned enough/gun wasnt moving enough air, and to make matters worse the cold prevented it from leveling properly and self-correcting. Still, it is very very slight, and i didnt do much prep to the cabinet. Very pleased with the result. However, that was the first and definitely last time i freaking spray oil paint. The clean up was AWFUL. So awful. You do that once and you will be cured for life.

I am definitely not spraying oil paint for these shelves. I wanted to stick to water based paints. I just was unsure of latex versus other varieties and which sprayed best for a moderate HVLP.

[Edward Dyas]

In my experience with enduro var, it only orange peels on me when its cold. Im not sure about the oil paint, but it makes sense that it wasnt thinned enough/gun wasnt moving enough air, and to make matters worse the cold prevented it from leveling properly and self-correcting. Still, it is very very slight, and i didnt do much prep to the cabinet. Very pleased with the result. However, that was the first and definitely last time i freaking spray oil paint. The clean up was AWFUL. So awful. You do that once and you will be cured for life.

I am definitely not spraying oil paint for these shelves. I wanted to stick to water based paints. I just was unsure of latex versus other varieties and which sprayed best for a moderate HVLP.If you don't want to work with oil based paint you might consider a pigmented lacquer. To spray water based paint you need different spray equipment. Waterborne finishes are so thick the paint needs to be pressurized to work right. There are a few guns out there that the cup is pressurized but they are few and far between. Harbor Freight makes a two quart pressure pot sprayer comes with the cup, gun and hoses for around 50-60 bucks that will spray a waterborne finish alright. If this something you need to spray a lot of paint there is also a tank available that holds two gallons of paints. I have one of those which I have fitted with 25' of hose. When I work in someones house I can sit the sprayer in the center of the room and spray everything.

[Patrick Kane]

We'll see how it goes. I picked up a quart of latex and the proper extender/thinner product to improve the flow of latex for my gun. This doesnt have to be perfect, so im hoping the combo works well enough.

Haven heard of pigmented lacquers, ill need to look into them. Is there a particular brand, or does Sherwin Williams carry the product?

[scott vroom]

+1 for GF Enduro Poly white base or tinted to an off white. I've sprayed many gallons on cabinet jobs and it is easy to get a perfect, smooth finish. If you desire an off-white, General Finishes will tint to match any of the Benjamin Moore colors.

[Jim Becker]

Patrick, for shelves you do not want common latex paint...you want 100% acrylic paint, such as SW ProClassic or BM Impervo. Why? Because regular "latex" paint commonly exhibits a property called blocking...where anything on the shelf sticks to the shelf. Going with a 100% acrylic coating prevents that from being a problem if you can't use something like Target Coatings EM6500 or GF Milk Paint. (the latter isn't really "milk paint"...its a colored acrylic and sprays wonderfully)

[Patrick Kane]

Patrick, for shelves you do not want common latex paint...you want 100% acrylic paint, such as SW ProClassic or BM Impervo. Why? Because regular "latex" paint commonly exhibits a property called blocking...where anything on the shelf sticks to the shelf. Going with a 100% acrylic coating prevents that from being a problem if you can't use something like Target Coatings EM6500 or GF Milk Paint. (the latter isn't really "milk paint"...its a colored acrylic and sprays wonderfully)

Did not know that, but good to know. So i think i actually have both types from Sherwin williams. I recently took down the upper cabinets over my range and replaced with a range hood and did a marble subway tile. Anyway, long way of saying i recently needed white paint to redo the crown and ceiling from slightly modifying the kitchen. One can is labeled Duration interior acrylic latex, and the other is Pro Classic interior acrylic latex. The latter is the one i think the sold me for the moulding.

I truly know very little about opaque finishes. I am interested in what you all are describing. Assuming a tinted lacquer/poly is infinitely more durable than paint. Are these finishes as thin as other waterbourne clear finishes?

[Jim Becker]

Tinted finishes tend to be more viscous just because they contain a ton of solids to provide the color. So the gun setup is pretty much different than when spraying clears, even when it's "the same products", such as Target Coating EM6000 Clear and EM6500 colored (any BM or SW color you want). I found the GF Milk Paint acrylic to be a little more forgiving in consistency than the EM6500 on a recent guitar project and would buy it again when I didn't need a specific color match like is available from Target. Spraying the SW or BM products I mentioned above requires a gun that's setup well for the process or you end up with spattering and a "not very nice" end result. I use a pressurized gun now (from Homestead Finishing) that includes the 3M PPS cup system and it pretty much can spray anything I've wanted to spray with great control.

[Edward Dyas]

We'll see how it goes. I picked up a quart of latex and the proper extender/thinner product to improve the flow of latex for my gun. This doesnt have to be perfect, so im hoping the combo works well enough.

Haven heard of pigmented lacquers, ill need to look into them. Is there a particular brand, or does Sherwin Williams carry the product?If you walk into a Sherwin Williams chances are they will tell you they don't sell pigmented lacquer but they do. It's a professional product and the local stores cater to the house painter. Ask for Opex Production Lacquer. This is their line of pigmented lacquer.

[Tom M King]

Sherwin-Williams 40 % off sale ended yesterday. They'll probably have 30% off in the next couple of weeks.

[Patrick Kane]

Well, that was an enormous fail. Even after thinning the paint with the M-1 additive, it still sprayed like crap. It looked like I was dipping s paint brush in paint and then flicking it at the shelves. It also made a complete mess and was a pain to clean the gun out. Not nearly as bad as the oil paint from before, but still not like cleaning out a clear finish.

The strange part is, the paint seemed pretty thin when I stirred it and let it run off the paint stick. Very poor results with the Fuji mini mite 4. Looks like im brushing it on.

[David Stone (CT)]

I recently sprayed an entry door with Benjamin Moore Aura exterior, my first experience spraying house paint with my HVLP set up, which is a 5 stage Apollo. Using a 2.0 needle/cap with what seemed like sufficient thinning to get a usable viscosity, I got a bunch of spitting and spattering on the first pass. So I thinned some more -- probably to something approaching 15% -- and that worked pretty well in the sense the result was very nice measured by the standard of what you'd expect on an architectural element and it was way faster. That said, my takeaway was that spraying house paint is pushing the limits of HVLP systems optimized for woodworking finishes and, even if it were not, woodworking finishes (like the aforementioned GF milk paint) are much better for woodworking projects, like your shelves.

[Jamie Buxton]

Well, that was an enormous fail. Even after thinning the paint with the M-1 additive, it still sprayed like crap. It looked like I was dipping s paint brush in paint and then flicking it at the shelves. It also made a complete mess and was a pain to clean the gun out. Not nearly as bad as the oil paint from before, but still not like cleaning out a clear finish.

The strange part is, the paint seemed pretty thin when I stirred it and let it run off the paint stick. Very poor results with the Fuji mini mite 4. Looks like im brushing it on.

What was the enormous fail? You got plenty of suggestions, so it is not clear what paint you chose to try.

[Patrick Kane]

The fail was the inability of the fuji system to atomize the paint. Even after thinning the paint considerably, it still didnt spray at all. I might try the lacquer options or milkpaint in the future, but for this small project, brushing it on is just fine.

[Tom M King]

The only thing I know that will spray a flawless finish, using Latex without thinning, is an airless rig using FFLP (fine finish low pressure) tips. You can do pretty good with a standard airless rig, but the extra atomization of the FF tips, at the lower pressure, makes a noticeable difference. My opinion is that it's wishful thinking to think you can thin latex, and be able to get a really good job. You might be able to get a pretty good job on horizontal surfaces.

[Jared Sankovich]

The fail was the inability of the fuji system to atomize the paint. Even after thinning the paint considerably, it still didnt spray at all. I might try the lacquer options or milkpaint in the future, but for this small project, brushing it on is just fine.

Wrong paint, or more thinning.

The fuji mm4 will spray bm advance perfectly. Ive even spray GF milk Paint. That stuff is about as thin as tar in the can

That said i prefer tinted precat lacquer

[Jim Becker]

Jared, I have found that the GF "milk paint" is less viscous than the Target EM6500 in a noticeable way. Both spray very nicely with the gun I got from Homestead Finishing with the 3M PPS pressurized disposable cup with minimal use of extender and no thinning with water. Some guns just don't like to atomize some finishes, unfortunately, and I'm not familiar with the Fuji setup. I didn't get great results with Advance with my old lower end conversion gun, but wouldn't hesitate to spray it with my current gun if it were the right product. I can spray SW ProClassic just fine with it and that's pretty thick stuff, too!

[Edwin Santos]

I assume you have the valve at the air hose opened all the way.

What nozzle tip/aircap size are you using?

[Dave Sabo]

Well, that was an enormous fail. Even after thinning the paint with the M-1 additive, it still sprayed like crap. It looked like I was dipping s paint brush in paint and then flicking it at the shelves. It also made a complete mess and was a pain to clean the gun out. Not nearly as bad as the oil paint from before, but still not like cleaning out a clear finish.

The strange part is, the paint seemed pretty thin when I stirred it and let it run off the paint stick. Very poor results with the Fuji mini mite 4. Looks like im brushing it on.


Mini 4 is a pretty good turbine. Should have no problem spraying. You have a Fuji gun I assume ?

Which needle/air cap is installed ? What needles do you have.

Did you perform a viscosity test with the paint from a ford cup ? What did it tell you ?

M-1 isn't really a thinner.

My guess is that you have too small a needle in the gun for the paint you chose. You tried to force too thick a liquid through too small a hole. Your turbine is not the problem.