I am in the market for a HVLP gun to prime/paint a couple of cars. What guns do you guys use? Have any of you tried Eastwood products? I am only looking for a driver quality paint job. Thanks

 

I have a Devilbiss Finishline 4 that works well, but I'm in the market for a Sata Jet 5000. You'll likely want different guns for primer, base coat, and clear. You definitely need different tips for those different products. I have not tried them, but a lot of people claim good results with the $15 Harbor Freight guns, especially for primer. At that price, it's cheaper to throw it away rather than cleaning it.

The question for you is, what type of paint are you spraying? Lacquer is very forgiving. Modern BC/CC catalyzed paints are not and require premium equipment for a good job. The real problem is that unlike lacquer, the metallic in BC/CC paints does not flow out in subsequent coats. With lacquer you could over-thin the final coat and "melt" the tiger stripes in the metallic. That is not the case with catalyzed BC/CC paints. As a result, you need a gun with very good pattern control and you need very careful control of your overlap on every pass.

 

Agree with Joe. Metallics require better equipment and some skill but if you are shooting a single stage solid color the Harbor Freight units are all you really need. I used one on my last job to shoot Black lacquer and it turned out great.

 

Probably should have a mask on....

 

At least it's lacquer and not an isocyanide paint.

 

Yeah...yeah I know. I did have a 4 foot floor fan pulling air through the shop and out under the shop door. Plywood blocking off the sides of the fan to the door opening. You can just see the top edge below the bottom of the door in the pic. Kinda of a redneck version of a down draft booth. I was shooting upstream of air flow.

 

X2 on the mask, and spraying in shorts and a tee lol and the the spray job looks to dry, check the data sheet if in question on what pressure you should be using, the key to a good paint job is the prep work, painting is the easy part..

 

Joe I respectfully disagree, you cant say weather or not if you suck enough fumes in your not gonna develop cancer weather is lacquer or urethane or whatever..

 

I bought the more expensive $75.00 Harbor Freight gun, because I thought more expensive would be better. (I know all HF stuff is china stuff) Well first paint I painted was 2k primer and it should have had a 2.0 nozzle/needle. It comes with a 1.4 and no others are available. I ended up buying a really cheap china gun on ebay that came with 3 sets of nozzles/needles and used that for primer. I have no idea what I am doing but I wanted to let you know about the one I bought. Not real happy about that....

 

Your wife or mother has sucked more lacquer fumes in a lifetime of doing their nails than I did shooting that car. Do they wear a mask?

 

I have several different guns and I also have a SATA 3000 which is a very good gun. I bought this gun from TCP Global which is surprisingly an excellent gun at a fraction of the cost of the Sata. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-1-3mm-HVLP-Gravity-Feed-SPRAY-GUN-w-REGULATOR-Auto-Paint-Basecoat-Clearcoat/391382041259?epid=19015494611&hash=item5b203002ab: gbwAAOSwuMxdFWeV

 

Thanks

 

You apparently missed the [SARCASM] ... [/SARCASM] HTML codes...

 

Nail polish is not aerosolized.

 

So I am wondering after all is said are folks happy with their results? I spent $4,200 at Maaco, they stripped about 6 layers of paint, did minor body work, fortunately I was rust free, and shot single stage Burgundy Mist metallic. I see lines in the metallic, and regret that they didn't spend more time blocking out the primer. Just enough ripples to bug me. They tell me single stage metallic will do that. Anyone else would think it looks great from 8'. I'm tempted to do it over myself next summer. I've watched Eastwoods video and of course it seems possible to do it yourself but how many people are really happy? The local guy says he could make it look Perfect for another 6k. 10k is not in my budget for sure. I suspect I'll live with it.

Steve

 

Oh boy, now THAT would really **** me off! I am in the process of painting a old truck as my first time. And yes there is a lot of mistakes,etc. And I was really surprised to see I have about $800.00 in single stage paint/primer/reducer/hardener. It's not cheap even to do it yourself. But I am doing it apparently a lot cheaper than Maaco. I always feel that if you do it yourself and there are mistakes,that's to be expected... But to pay a "professional" and there are still mistakes that's not acceptable in my opinion. I am not sure why this Maaco took your project unless they would feel confident they could do it right. After all your car isn't a 10 year old Kia, It is a collector car and will probably outlast you and maybe other "caretakers" . It would have been easy to simply just be "too busy to get to your car" , because of insurance repairs or whatever excuse they wanted to use. Thanks for posting this, it will give others who are considering painting a car some more info to consider.

 

On top of that they had it 5 months. Yes, 5 months, I was not happy, actually i was to finally get it back. I brought it in totally stripped in and out. They really aren't set up for big projects, as you stated the in and out insurance jobs. I'll let it go a year or two and then redo it myself. It just stinks after all that to still feel like I'm not moving forward on the car and to know I will be pulling it all apart again. Well, maybe I should reconsider and do it over now. I looked more last night and some folks have done great paint jobs on their own.

Steve

 

I use a devilbiss starting line for a primer gun and. Love the Sharpe finex 3000. It's a great economy gun. Not super cheap but not super expensive. It lays metallic down really good. I use the same gun for clear. I don't paint everyday as my duty in the shop is fixing the big wreck's but when I need to that's my gun. If you are gonna paint alot . The Tekna prolite is one of my top dollar favorites. I had one and sold it when I decided to stop doing combo work and just stick to the metal work and frame work.

 

All depends on what you're doing and your expectations. This is one of those areas that takes a LOT of skill to master. You can get acceptable results with relatively minor investment though.
e.g., I'm terrible at paint, but I have manageable expectations, especially for non-critical things. So I picked up the cheap dual gun set at HF and started playing around. I ""stepped up"" to their (at the time) premium $50 gun. I've used that for everything except the exterior sheet metal - pulleys, brackets, cowl, inside of fenders, interior metal, interior plastic, dash pad, steering column, etc etc. Both flats and metallics. You can get good results with enough patience, practice, and re-work. I average about 3 re-dos for every job.
Did I actually save money compared to hiring out all that work? Probably not, but I was able to do it on my schedule, re-do until I was happy with it, and in a few cases change colors.
You can also be choosy about paint. My local jobber shop is a PPG dealer, so they also have Omni, and they also stock Advantage. So I used PPG's DBC for the parts where I'm picky about color and appearance (dash!), and Omni for the rest of the colors, and Advantage for most of the primers/clears.
But I had all the bodywork and paint done by a high quality shop.

Actually, I recently repaired a demolished quarter panel on my '02 Lincoln. It has a tri-coat! I just used Omni paints and the paint is a glorious match and looks simply great. The body work that I did? Yeah, not so much. But the paint laid down on my shitty, and obvious, weld line just fine!

As mentioned, the latest and prettiest paint is the most demanding.