PC PSH1 gun a deal or not?

[Allen Bookout]

I do not know if the Porter Cable PSH1 is any good or not but I just ordered one because I wanted one for small jobs where no overhead spraying was required and when I did not want to get my pressure gun dirty.

The reviews were good on Amazon and it was dirt cheap, discounted to $82.34, so I went ahead anyway. For anyone interested here is the deal:

<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr><td nowrap="nowrap">Subtotal of Items: </td> <td width="98%">$82.34</td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap">Shipping & Handling: </td> <td>$7.14 </td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap">Super Saver Discount: </td> <td>-$7.14</td> </tr><tr> </tr><tr> <td nowrap="nowrap">Promotion Applied: </td> <td>-$16.47</td> </tr><tr> </tr><tr> <td>
</td> <td>------</td> </tr> <tr> <td nowrap="nowrap">Total for this Order: </td> <td>$65.87</td></tr></tbody> </table>
The $16.47 promotion code applied is on the Amazon page that advertises this gun.

Is this gun any good or did I just throw away my money?

If it is a decent gun maybe this will fill someone elses needs at what appears to be a good price.

Thanks! Allen

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[Bob Reda]

Allen,

I have a couple of them and I like them. I normally spray water based products and on occasson oil base and they work pretty good.

Bob

[Bob Reda]

Allen,

I have a couple of them and I like them. I normally spray water based products and on occasson oil base and they work pretty good.

Bob

[Steve Clardy]

Well I've got four of them in my cabinet finish room.
Thats all I use

[Allen Bookout]

I am starting to feel better now. Allen

[Mike Henderson]

I use it also and like it. Very light use, however.

Mike

[Steve Clardy]

Allen. The reason I have 4 is I have a cabinet shop, and don't really have time to clean guns all the time.
1 for stain, 1 for sealer, 1 for lacquer, and 1 for waterbase poly.

These are good, low cost guns.
What I've found with them though, the recommended air pressure is 10#'s. Well. They don't spray well at 10 #'s.
Mine are set at 20 summer, 25 winter.

And. The little strainer they furnish for the inside of the cup? Don't bother to put it in. Go down to a auto parts store that sells auto paint, and get a bag of paint strainers. Less headaches.
And yes, strain everything you put into it. Quite a pita when you are halfway into a job and something plugs the gun up.

[Allen Bookout]

I decided to do a search on the Creek and picked up on the 20 to 25 lbs and ditching the strainer. Thanks a lot.

A guy could waste a lot of time not thinking about jacking up the pressure to make it work better. My guess is that Porter Cable is unable to put out that information for fear of lawsuits concerning increased emissions.

[Steve Clardy]

Don't know why they publish 10 #'s.

Guns just squirt at that pressure.

[Allen Bookout]

Allen.
What I've found with them though, the recommended air pressure is 10#'s. Well. They don't spray well at 10 #'s.
Mine are set at 20 summer, 25 winter.

I just got my PSH1 today and was looking at the specifications and it shows the "Recommended Operating Air Pressure" as 45psi. I remember several reports of PC recommending 10psi as you had said. I tried the 10psi just for fun and it went sputter. Then went to 20psi and great spray pattern with what appeared to be little overspray, cranked it up to 40psi and and I might as well have been using one of my regular automotive guns. I was testing with lacquer thinner.

I just found it interesting that they went from recommending 10psi that was way too low for anything to 45psi which was WAY too high, at least for the thinner stuff. Maybe they used that high figure for someone trying to push real thick stuff through it.

I just thought that it was interesting that they went from one extreme to the other with their recommendations.

Allen

[Steve Clardy]

Does seem odd. I'll have to dig out the paperwork on my newest gun and look it over.

[David Croteau]

From the Amazon site:

Product Description
Avg. SCFM req. @ 40 PSI: 8.5. High volume low pressure technology. Offers high output and low overspray. Adjustable fluid & spray controls.

I'm new to all this. Do these just run off a regular air compressor, such as a little PC "pancake," or do they require something special?

[Matt Meiser]

I've been using mine a bit lately for shooting Rustoleum and have started to really like it. Did my lathe, my trailer, and an electrical cabinet. I also really like how easy it is to clean. With the Rustoleum I've been putting a little mineral spirits in the cup and shaking it, dumping that out and putting a little more in, spraying some out, then breaking down the gun and cleaning all the cup and nozzle parts in MS. The supplied wrench breaks the gun down fast and the brush makes it easy to clean the insides.

[Steve Clardy]

From the Amazon site:

Product Description
Avg. SCFM req. @ 40 PSI: 8.5. High volume low pressure technology. Offers high output and low overspray. Adjustable fluid & spray controls.

I'm new to all this. Do these just run off a regular air compressor, such as a little PC "pancake," or do they require something special?


The pancakes will run these guns. I use the guns, compressors on job sites when I need to. They run almost constant if you are spraying constant, but will keep up with the miminum amout of air the gun needs.

[Allen Bookout]

David,

My answer would have been "no" so I am glad that Steve spoke up and said that you could. My answer is now "yes" as he certainly has a lot of experience with it.

My literature showed the same thing that you posted. Avg. 8.5 SCFM req. @ 40 PSI. I think that the trick is that you will not need any more that 20 to 25 PSI, and maybe even a little bit less, from what I was able to determine in my preliminary cleaning and short test with the gun. I was just trying it out because of the heads up that the experienced users like Steve were giving to us guys new to the gun. Evidently the origional information suggested operating the gun at 10PSI.

[Joe Scarfo]

That's the gun I have and I like it...

I've had it a number of years and don't have anything else to compare it to. If I had it to do over again... I'd buy the same thing...

I seem to recall having paid in the mid 60's or so at the Porter Cable store in Tampa.....

Good Luck
Joe

[Gary Hoemann]

So what nozzle would you get if you wanted to be able to spray latex also--the 2.0 or 2.2

[Chuck Trisdale]

but you still have to thin it down a little, use floetrol, or both. I am actually running some tests with it the day I get it using floetrol. I get it tomorrow I think.

[Steve Clardy]

I don't suggest using it for latex. Would have to water it way down.
But I haven't tried it either.

[Charlie Plesums]

From the Amazon site:

Product Description
Avg. SCFM req. @ 40 PSI: 8.5. High volume low pressure technology. Offers high output and low overspray. Adjustable fluid & spray controls.

I'm new to all this. Do these just run off a regular air compressor, such as a little PC "pancake," or do they require something special?
I like the PC gun - have probably shot 50 gallons of lacquer with it, but I still thin the lacquer with perhaps 30-40% thinner. I have a grunge turbine, also, which requires less thinning.

The compressor mystery....

The compressor compresses the air, perhaps at a rate of 5 cfm at 90 psi. If you only have a compressor and use 6 cfm, you haven't got it available. In practice, compressors have tanks, which holds quite a few cfm at that high pressure. So you can use 6 cfm with a 5 cfm compressor... until you use up the air in the tank. Big tank, it will be a long time to use it up. Little tank (like the pancakes), you can use it up fast.

What percent of the time are you spraying "full volume?" Probably never. If you are running at 75% of the air volume, then the requirement becomes around 6 cfm, rather than 8. If you only have the trigger pulled 2/3 of the time (you do stop at the end of each stroke), then 6 cfm becomes 4. Small tank, small compressor, fast operator, and you can probably get ahead of the compressor. If you watch for the pressure dropping, you can take a breather - slow down - while the compressor catches up.

My PSH-1 says it takes 10 psi at the tip. But there is no gauge at the tip. I assumed that 20 PSI at the inlet was close to 10 PSI at the tip, which works good with thinned lacquer. The next time I spray something heavy (like sanding sealer) I may try the 30 or 40 psi inlet pressure with less thinning.

[Ken Werner]

Guys, I owe you. Allen for posting about this great deal, and Steve for telling that it'll work with a pancake. [That's the only compressor this amateur has.]

So my PSH 1 is on its way.

Ken