I finally spent a decent amount of time with an HVLP sprayer that I bought last year. (Thank you for encouraging that, Mr. TenEyck). The results weren't pretty at first, but there were moments where it was magical.

I can see now that I want to do a lot of spraying in the future.

I would like to get a higher quality set up. I would spend more time with this unit, but the needle got stuck when I tried to disassemble it and I bent it, and they don't seem to sell replacement parts for this model (I bought it at a clearance sale for damaged merchandise, so the fact that it worked nicely for a while was okay).

How does one go about selecting a decent quality spraying set up for a hobbyist who just builds furniture?

I am not intending to spray anything oil based, nor latex paint, and probably won't spray anything larger than a dining table. People keep talking about water based pigmented lacquers, and I might want to try that.

I will want to be able to spray at my house and at a warehouse that is available to me, so it needs to be portable. My only use for a compressor is for a pin nailer and filling tires, and my Senco is about 1.5 cfm, so I am thinking a turbine might be the way to go.

I saw that Prashun looked at options and then bought the Fuji Mini Mite 4. Is that a ridiculous start for someone who has only sprayed a few things but knows that it is going to be happening a lot from here on out? I don't want to get a system that has features I would never use, but I really don't want to get something I am likely to outgrow in the next year or two.