Best Spray Paint

[Ron Magliocco]

Hi all - I like to use spray paint to finish simple jigs, shelves, and functional pieces in the shop. It gives everything a consistent look and it's cheap and easy to use. The issue I'm having lately is that almost every can sputters or stops spraying after a few uses leaving most of the paint still in the can and unusable.

The shop is climate controlled and I clear out the valve and tube by spraying upside down after every use. I'm buying the Krylon Paint+Primer from Home Depot.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a better brand or better method to get all the paint out of the can?

[John TenEyck]

Have you tried wiping the nozzle with lacquer thinner right after spraying to keep it clean? If the paint is dried in the nozzle nothing may work, but I've brought some cans back to life by soaking the nozzle in lacquer thinner. On old style cans you can just change the whole nozzle. But I've had no luck on some cans even doing that. My conclusion on those is that the gas has leaked out, but I haven't been brave enough to punch a hole in the can to confirm.

John

[Charles Wiggins]

"Best" is one of those relative terms. A $6 can of paint that clogs and sputters is much worse than a $1 can that does, so for me a $1 can that does not clog and sputter is just awesome. With that in mind, the "best" paint I ever used was One Coat brand. We used to get it from Rose's dept store as "Rose's One Coat" and later on I could get it at Agri Supply in Greenville, NC. Can't find it now.

It was $1 a can, had excellent coverage and adhesion, and rarely clogged or ran out of propellant before the paint was expended. The biggest downside was a limited palette of color choices. When I was doing a lot of fabrication and aluminum casting it was our go-to if we needed to spray paint anything. If anyone knows where it can be had now I'd love to be able to buy it again.

The cheap paint at Lowe's seems alright on those accounts but it only comes in Gloss Black and Gloss White - not even flat. Disappointing.

[Wayne Cannon]

I've had good results from any of several lines of Rustoleum-brand spray paints.

Although we use Krylon for occasional things at work, I've found Krylon to be finicky -- both partially and fully clogged nozzles, and finishes if applied too soon, too late, or too thickly.

[Jim Becker]

I've noticed in the last few years that the spray-can paint products have been more ornery around the nozzle...sometimes even when brand new. But in general, I agree with the comments that actually cleaning the nozzles helps a lot. It almost doesn't matter what brand, either. Most of the time, I use spray-can paint from HD or True Value when it's the right choice for a small project.

[Tom M King]

I recently had to fix a fuel tank on a tractor. It involved derusting the inside with muriatic acid, and then rinsing. I dried the inside of it over an outside cooking burner, and after recoating the inside of it, the outside needed painting. The burner, of course, meant that the outside would need to be re-painted. I didn't want to bother to use anything but a can of spray paint, so bought the John Deere color from Ace Hardware in their store brand. Sorry, don't remember the name. I was amazed at what a good job it did with the quality of the spray.

It needed a little touch up a couple of weeks later, after I got around to installing it back in the tractor, and the spray can was good to go.

It had been a long time since I have used spray paint. This one had a large nozzle that I had not seen before. I don't know if this one use was any kind of reliable testing, but I was impressed enough that I'll go the same route if I ever buy more spray paint. It had a very strong solvent odor, even under a respirator, so I wouldn't use it anywhere but outside.