What am I doing wrong - Spraying Exterior Latex

[Wes Billups]

I'm by no means an expert but had the same issue with my first attempt at spraying latex paint. After cleaning up and painting the project with a brush I realized my screen filter (strainer) may have been limiting the amount of fluid making it to the sprayer nozzle. On the next project I made sure to filter the thinned latex paint and then sprayed with zero issues leaving the strainer off my Fuji sprayer.

I have never used a gravity feed gun so it this is what you are using, disregard my comments.

Good luck.

[Michael Fink]

If you want to spray latex unthinned, you're probably going to need a different setup. A pressure pot or an airless (or air assisted airless, if you really want to spend some $$). Latex paint, in general, does not spray well with a conventional air spray gun.

As an alternative, you can look at a different paint product that's ready to spray. I use Emtech pigmented lacquer, no thinning required to go through a 2.0 tip, sprays beautiful and lays down perfectly without any extenders necessary in most situations.

When I need to paint with an "off the shelf" Lowes/HD paint, it's "get out the airless" or a brush/roller. That kind of paint is just not designed for non-pressurized air spray gun. I think a pressure pot would work, I've heard others have success, but I've never tried it myself so can't offer first hand advise.