EM 9300 tip

[Jeremy Patrick]

For those who spray EM 9300, I wanted to ask what size tip and or settings you have seen is needed to spray this product well.
Have only sprayed 6000 prior to this and in comparison the 9300 seems thicker.
I picked up one of the harbor freight guns to play around with it and so far I can spray the 9300 without dilution, but it sure seems to need a lot more air behind it to come out decently.
Had also posted a while back about having the 9300 sitting in the garage when the temps dipped pretty low. Trying to figure out if the viscosity of this is about right for what I’m seeing when spraying or if it’s too thick, possibly from the cold.

[Jim Becker]

You really have to "dial in" every different finish you use...I tape up some paper on what is effectively a wall in my shop (double doors) and spray a bit to get things the way I want with each finish I use. You are correct that different Target products have different viscosities! I'm generally using a 1.3mm needle set for these products with my gun with 40 psi off the compressor at the gun inlet and 5psi to pressurize the 3M PPS cup.

You really need waterborne finishes to be up in the temp range specified for spraying them. It's not just the environment, but also the product. Keep it in the house if your shop is not heated. Prior to installing my min-split, I kept all my waterborne finishing products in a closet in the house over the winter months plus late fall/early spring. You absolutely have to keep it from freezing. One can warm up the finish to be used reasonably quickly by using a warm water bath around the gun container or other small container if necessary.

[Jeremy Patrick]

Thanks Jim.
Looks like we're both on the same page more or less. This gun comes with a 1.4mm needle. Seems the HF guns mention different needle sizes but nobody sells the other ones... I'm guessing that is the advantage with the qualspray you have is that you can order other needles as needed.
Anyway, I also have a test piece I use before spraying to make sure it's looking about right. also at 40psi although the gauge needs to be replaced at the gun so that is currently a dial by feel setup
After I got feedback on that last post about the 9300 and temp, I brought it inside and it's been inside ever since. Although what I ordered is gloss, what is drying is not gloss. More like a matte. See a few globs in there, minor but still present. Most of them break up when running through a filter, but since I'm seeing them it's probably not the best sign...
Even though the garage should never freeze inside even with temps in the teens, something must have happened.

I'm spraying some closet doors at the moment, and to keep them uniform I'll probably continue with this batch until it looks smooth. I did order another gallon of the 9300 and aside from the shipping temps, it has been in the basement since it arrived. Will use that on some trim and see how it turns out. If it looks glossy then I'll do a light coat over the doors again to hopefully achieve the same look.

[John TenEyck]

The viscosity of both those products is pretty low compared to most of the WB finishes I use most often, around 30 seconds #4 Ford cup for EM-6000 and 35 for EM-9300. So yes, EM-9300 is thicker than EM-6000, but not by much. As Jim said, your finish needs to be warm to spray well. The viscosity numbers are reported typically at 70F and some products change considerably at lower temperature.

If by Harbor Freight gun you mean the purple, gravity feed one with a 1.4 mm N/N, it should spray either product pretty well, though they would spray better if you dilute them until the viscosity is around 25 seconds.

John

[Jeremy Patrick]

Not the purple gun, it’s the more expensive one in the 70$ range. I have the purple one too but as cheap as it is I have it more for parts than actual usage.

[John TenEyck]

Not the purple gun, it’s the more expensive one in the 70$ range. I have the purple one too but as cheap as it is I have it more for parts than actual usage.

OK, but if it's gravity feed and has a 1.4 mm N/N the same recommendations apply.

John

[Jim Becker]

I don't have any experience with a gravity feed gun, so John's advice is nice to have here.

My gun came with 1.0, 1.3 and 1.5 mm needle sets. I recently sprayed some EM6500 tinted product and liked the results with the 1.5mm set better than with the 1.3mm set. EM6000, EM7000, EM8000cv and the GF Milk Paint spray beautifully with the 1.3mm setup. I would expect that the EM9300 would be similar with my particular gun.

[Jeremy Patrick]

Good info, thanks
I’m suspecting the batch of finish more and more at the moment. Sounds like everything else lines up as the ideal scenario for proper spraying.

[Jeremy Patrick]

Also, what have you seen as the drying times for 9300?
For the closet door, by the time I’m done with the door the bottom portion is already nearly dry. Compared to the 6000 this seems really fast since I can do the entire door in the same time and the entire thing is still wet.

[John TenEyck]

I used EM-9300 once. It took quite awhile to dry; far longer than what you described. I have the same gun as Jim. Because the viscosity of EM-9300 is so low I used the 1.0 mm N/N to spray it and it laid down beautifully. Remember, this is a pressure feed gun, so the proper N/N set is smaller than for a gravity feed gun. Anyway, I had defects in the coating on the white oak I was spraying it onto. I called TC and was advised to move up to the 1.3 mm N/N set. It sprayed equally well after I turned down the flow and upped the pressure, but the defects remained. TC was kind enough to refund my money but I've never tried it again. I really liked the look and feel of the finish and might try it again on another exterior door project, as long as it's not white oak.

John

[Jeremy Patrick]

Wanted to post a follow-up on this. 2 days ago I got out to the shop with the new gallon of 9300. Same issue more or less. Opened the gun up a bit more for a heavier coat but thinking maybe I was going too light. But still noticed that on the closet doors it was drying by the time I got to the other end. Not fully dry, but enough so you could see it wasn't wet anymore. I was moving decently fast, so 5-8 minutes. I remember the 6000 taking a good 20-30 minutes to loose the wet shine as it dried. I'm in mid WI and when I get the furnace going in the garage I know it's pretty dry, but even at 70-80 in the shop that seems ridiculously fast for drying time.
Also noticed there were areas that had a shine to them and other areas that seemed to have a matte finish.
But on the flip side the baseboard and casing pieces I was working on took a coat of the 9300 perfectly fine. Nice glossy look after they dried. Used the same settings on the gun too.
So as far as I can tell it was something just odd with the doors. but without stripping everything down to bare wood and starting all over again I don't know if I will ever figure it out. The exterior facing side looks decent, so for the time being I'll use them. Lightly used area to begin with so any minor oddities with the finish shine probably will never be noticed.

[John TenEyck]

Five to eight minutes to spray one side of a closet door is way too long. No wonder the end where you started has already flashed over by the time you get to the other end. I don't time it, but I'm pretty sure it takes less than 90 seconds when I spray a door, including the edges.

You likely need to thin EM-9300 to get the viscosity down to 25 seconds to better match the 1.4 mm N/N on your gravity fee gun. Then open the needle to 1.5 - 2 turns to start and adjust the inlet pressure until you get a good burst pattern on Kraft paper with the gun 8 - 10" away and the fan wide open. Two passes, overlapped by 50%, should give you 3 - 4 mils wet on a sealed surface at a pace of about 1 ft/sec. Use a

mil gage to measure the coating thickness until you know what that looks like.

John

[Jim Becker]

I agree with John about the time...one coat on something the size of a door takes a minute to a minute and a half to spray a coat and that's with gun movement in both long ways and across for even coating. If you have to go so slow that it's taking you many minutes, there's something very amiss with your gun.

[Jeremy Patrick]

Maybe my timing measurement it a bit off. I was guesstimating but it was probably far shorter than that since I was moving fairly fast. maybe a minute to a minute and a half is more like it. My perception of time after deployment to the sandbox has been skewed ever since...
But point taken. I'll have to tinker and see.
I had used my earlex 5500 unit on full sized doors using 6000 and it sprayed fine in the middle of summer. Mid 80's and far higher humidity. The closet doors would be just shy of the 34" width so given what I was experiencing with that I thought I had everything lined up properly with the other spray gun. Only reason why I didn't use the earlex for the 9300 was how thick the initial batch was, I didn't think the 5500 would be able to work with that viscosity.
I do overlap like John mentioned, but the thing I'm wondering is if when I put shellac down maybe there were enough areas that didn't get sprayed with enough coverage therefore affecting how the 9300 was laying down... With subsequent passes on the 9300, would that make a difference or after one layer of 9300 should it build on itself and level out?