Harbor freight paint sprayer.

[woodtickgreg]

Well this should be interesting. This is a $70 experiment that I want to try. I don't know if my shop compressor is large enough to run this spray gun but I'm going to give it a try. I am using wbp more and more and I have always wanted to spray it. Ultimately I want to get a fuji help system but $600 to $800 is not in my budget right now. This gun has good reviews, wbp is low viscosity so it may work, we'll see.
Here's what I purchased to do the test. Gun, filters, gun stand, air fittings,, and I wanted to try the disposable cups too. And some cheap plastic drop cloths because I don't know how much overspray there will be.

 

[2feathers Creative Making]

I have purchased their hvlp kit with onboard air pump. I have yet to do any spraying. Will post review in separate thread as soon as I get some spray time.
I have used one of their gravity feed and liked it but I have a 7 hp 60 gallon 230v compressor so that's not a fair comparison for your application.
What I have seen from mine, the drop cloths will be useful in an indoor shop setting.

 

[woodtickgreg]

I'm not sure if my little shop compressor will be big enough but we'll see. Gun only needs between 15 and 40 psi, I might be ok. If not it'll be time to upgrade the shop air compressor, lol.

 

[Ray D]

We use them as throw away guns at my place of work. We run them at 20 psi…give or take. They work fine. We don’t even bother cleaning them.

 

[sprucegum]

Helped my son spray a few sets to kitchen cabinets with water base poly. He has a pretty good set of gravity sprayers, he seemed to think dry air was very important. Makes a awesome finish but takes more coats than brush on.

 

[djg]

I have the same HF sprayer and my own regulator (similar to yours) and used it with oil base paint on my john boat. It didn't spray a big pattern, but I may not have had it set right. I used a different gun for the primer and it was a mess. Took three times the primer and ended up too thick. And yes as stated, dry air is important. My gun was dripping water throughout the process.

 

[gman2431]

We use them as throw away guns at my place of work. We run them at 20 psi…give or take. They work fine. We don’t even bother cleaning them.

Same here at both my last employers, we also use the bottom feeds for spraying contact adhesive.

 

[Nubsnstubs]

Greg, don't let Betty see my response, otherwise that new compressor you are drooling over may never happen.

I spent a week just spraying cabinets in Missouri 2 months ago. I was using an air compressor he had that was about 3-4 cfm. I was also using my 2 1/2 gallon conventional spray tank and 25 foot hoses with a Binks model 62 gun. The compressor kept up with my needs. Never was there a shortage of air, but I could tell when it got under 30 pounds of air at the nozzle. By that time, I was doing my round of spraying.

I also used a sprayer like you show that never lost any performance with the lacquer and varnish I was spraying. So, you now a have a pretty good set up. All you have to be concerned about is losing that cir-clip that keeps the trigger in place. That's a pain to lose one........ Jerry (in Tucson)

 

[woodtickgreg]

Thanks for the input guys. And @Nubsnstubs Jerry, Betty always supports what I'm doing, she never tells me I can't buy something and I'm the same way with her. If she needs a new sewing machine we get what she wants, period. I'm hoping that the 4 gallon 150psi compressor I have might work for awhile just for spraying projects in the shop, but a bigger compressor will be coming soon! I have a monster 2 stage in the garage, the wood shop needs an air upgrade. It has served me well for running nail guns and blowing stuff off but I want something with more reserve and quieter. I hope to test this spray gun out over the holliday weekend.

 

[woodtickgreg]

Well today after work I took the gun apart and clearned it out, was full of assembly type grease. Then I put one of the disposal cups on, what a pice of crap! The threads are so loose it would have leaked for sure, so I did a few wraps of Teflon tape to make sure it wouldn't leak. Then I kinda set it up and ran some water through it to become familiar with and how to adjust the fan width and fluid delivery. Kinda cool for a cheap little gun. I also tried out the gun holder, I think this is going to be very handy when straining material and filling the cup.

Tomorrow is wash and wax the cars day since it's not going to be blazing hot, probably won't get to try this out until Sunday. I'll spray 3 or 4 coats of wbp on the outfeed table legs as a tryout.

 

[woodtickgreg]

I hung some plastic up to help contain some of the overspray for the try out. I tested the spray pattern on a pice of cardboard that you can see hanging on the blue tarp.

Strained some wbp and filled the cup. Glad I strained it because I did see debris in the filter after it ran through. The stand worked great for this.

Here you can see its cloudy in the spray booth after the first coat. I learned some things as I went. I adjust the fan width, set the fan for horizontal, narrowed the spray width, adjusted the fluid flow, did all this on the fly as I was learning how to use the gun.

My little 4 gal compressor worked but I did have to stop a lot and let it catch up often. I kept a dry brush handy to take care of runs and drips because there was some. I need better lighting for this I think. But the gun itself worked really good! I'm actually very surprised at how well it worked. I got one coat per full paint cup. I figured I'd make this post while I'm waiting for it to dry, wbp only takes 30 minutes to an hour to dry between coats.
I'll give this little gun a 2 thumbs up for spraying wbp.
This thing would be great for flat work!

 

[woodtickgreg]

Washed it in hot water, blew it out with compressed air to clean it up.
Pretty simple, not a lot of parts actually.

Ready to go for the next time.

Pretty happy with this little spray gun. I just need more practice with it. But for spraying wbp it does what it's supposed to do. It shot a nice fine mist, didnt spatter, and was easy to make adjustments to it on the fly. I ran 30 lbs of pressure through it and it seemed fine.
But the shop is going to get a bigger compressor