home respray advice reply to another thread

[dustyfog]

yes you can get a great finish doing a spray job at home if you use the right equiptment<br><br>

and more recent<br><br>

The best way is the new HVLP high volume low pressure spray guns. no big clouds of over spray. Takes a bit of getting used to but if you have never sprayed before then this is the way forward. collages and tecs will only used HVLP sprays now. (H & S). I have talked to pro sprayers who fort against them but swear by them now.

(as being an x paint sprayer my self ) and used hvlp firstly could i say hvlp is not new, i was using them in the mid to late 90s i disagree over hvlp for home use as they need a constant supply of air to the gun to enable the pressure pot to function propley, they are also none to realible either as there is a ball bearing valve on the underside of the thredded area on the inside of the pot that blocks when you least expect it thus reducing pressure to the gun, the pressure regulator that pressurises the pot fails more than often. they take a lot more to clean out as you have a paint pipe from the pot to gun to clean as well as the pot, to run these correctly you need a big compressor to run these units, these guns are designed for industrial applications only, in reality the maximum cfm you can go to is 18 to 28 cfm at home on a 240 supply. the 18 cfm compressor uses a 4hp motor and a 200 litre tank which must run from a 40amp direct supply from the consumer unit. the other 28 cfm compressor has a bank of 2x3 hp electric motors with susquential starting coupled to 2x14 cfm air pumps on a 270 litre air reciever .

Both of these compressors must be hard wired and the use of 6.0 mm cable min must be used in all cases as is its own rcd

unfortuanly to achieve these finshes i have to admit i have 2 compressors, one for my spray gun and one for my air fed mask
1 is 14 cfm 50 liter air tank for my devilbiss jga 558 suction feed spray gun, the other is 18 cfm 200 litre with numerious in-line water traps and filters for my air fed mask. the reason i use the big compressor for the air fed mask is it needs a constant air supply so by using the big compressor for this it cuts in less often as the other fills up the 50 litre tank quicker for the spray gun.

as being ex trade a lot of people don't realise what is involved in painting a car espically with equiptment, i certnaly wouldn't recomend buying compressors from supermarkets , there all right for proping doors open and inflating tyres , as there is the reliablity factor to concider, nothing worse than your compressor packing up half way through. believe me i have been there, they are built to a price and not built for the job you really want to do with it

please remember you only get out of it what you put into it

[bmcecosse]

Good advice there - although I have to say my Aldi compressor is doing fine so far! And - I have in the past used just the compressor from a freezer unit - with a large tank. It took ages to fill the tank - but that then held enough air to spray one panel very satisfactorily. This was no problem except for the (Trav) roof - which had to be done in stages with just light coats all over each time. It's not as good as job as Dusty has produced , of course, but it's much better than it was, and didn't cost a fortune !

[jonathon]

Hmm, are you using a seperate gun and pot system here 'dustyfog' ?.
We use gravity fed HVLP guns, no ball bearing or pipe arrangement. Our guns run on 4.5 -5 cfm, so maybe we are talking about different types of kit here, as HVLP is a more suitable gun for home use as the amount of overspray is vastly reduced, they are particulary effective with high solid (HS) paint too.
Totally in agreement with your last comment though.

[dustyfog]

Yes Jonathon it does seems we are talking about different types of hvlp!!! The one pictured below is the similar type I used;

<br><br>

this is intender for commercial vehicle application, so I can see where my confusion has come from. The type you use has been converted to hvlp over the period of time for EPA and cossh restrictions. Years ago we used to call them gravity feed fine finish spray guns, so I didn’t realise the transition between the two as they are similar (of the gravity type spray gun) in hindsight going down the hvlp route would be more beneficial over the conventional jga suction type

[listerjones]

I have to say I agree with Jonathan, HVLP is so much better at home as the amount of particles in the atmosphere is greatly reduced. Hitting the lacquer on an old triumph spitfire in British racing green in a small shed is not fun, especially when you have to take a deep breath and remove mask and squint eyes hard close up to see where the car is as your consumed by lacquer.

small compressors are ok so long as the power output is good, all the while its draining the tank your on a loosing streak,. Its all personal choice at the end of the day. Yes you get what you pay for but in this day and age things have shifted on nicely and quality components can be cheaper, but not too cheap.

[dp]

Anyone tried rollering rustoleum on here? Seen mixed results on Volkszone. cheap and do-able but very time consuming by the look of it.
http://www.volkszone.co.uk/VZi/showthread.php?t=382595

[linearaudio]

I use, and would recommend to anyone in a home environment, An electric pump operated gun. Made by Apollo and Earlex, NOT to be confused with the £9.99 fence sprayer things!

The heart of the system is what sounds like a vacuum cleaner motor, blowing air through a 1" diameter flexible feed pipe to a dedicated gun. I have happily sprayed whole cars this way, it is quiet so doesn't unduly upset the neighbours, instant and consistent in its feed, gives little overspray, is highly adjustable and the whole kit can easily be carried in one hand, as mobile as your extension lead is!
Got mine for about £70 off ebay, complete ready to go. I know the experts will sneer and say that you can pay that for a Devilbis gun alone, but I am no expert! The finish acheived is superb, the limiting factor being airborne flying things, which would afflict any system in the same environment

[listerjones]

Hi linearaudio, your absoloutely right, I had an apollo when I was an apprentice trying to make some money on a few hobbles after work. I used to do custom painting on bike tanks and It was very good. Mine was pretty noisy but she was old.

I remember my mentor in the spraying world lending me a video of how rolls royce painted thier cars, They hammered the paint on untill it was running off everywhere then baked it off and wheeled it into a room full of what appeared to be an all woman cast of platters and polishers, then brought it up like glass.

The motto is, better to have to much paint on than have it go on to dry, you can flatten runs out, but can't do alot about dry lines.

hammer it on buddy.

[croft]

"I remember my mentor in the spraying world lending me a video of how rolls royce painted thier cars, They hammered the paint on untill it was running off everywhere then baked it off and wheeled it into a room full of what appeared to be an all woman cast of platters and polishers, then brought it up like glass. "

Its True! My old (sadly now departed) uncle worked in a boatyard in the Lakes. The boss of the boatyard owned an "old"? Rolls royce. One day he managed to dent the front wing/running board. Rolls Royce sent out a "man" to fix it for him! After a few hrs of bashing the wing he started to "paint" it. A tin of paint and a paint brush! Uncle remembers watching him, "runs all over, dust and flies sticking to it looked a right mess" The "Man" was there for a week! put on a coat of paint in the morning, let it dry then rubbed it down, another coat of paint in the afternoon, rubbed it down ect etc... after a week of this the repair looked fantastic! Suppose this sort of painting could still be carried out but at what labour cost?

[listerjones]

Massive costs I think. Mind you when I was an aprentice I kinda had the similar effect from my gun ha ha. There are some people out there that proclaim its not in the painting but the flat and polishing. And they'll be right to a point. The only way to get a completly flat finish i.e not orangeish peel, is to flat and polish. Problem is if you work in a commercial bodyshop its gun finish or no finish. Everything is geared to a quick turn around.
In general you can paint 2k with a brush and if you had the patience flat and polish the whole thing. in my opinion 2k is very workable and a joy to use, unless is a kandy colour,.

[isplice]

Linearaudio, can you recommend which model of Apollo/Earlex you used - seem to be lots of different types on fleabay? And does this work OK with cellulose?

[stuart_k]

I have a Fuji HVLP setup which is similar to the Apollo but the next step up. I've never used it for spraying panels although I mean to try at some point. It sprays lacquer just fine on acoustic guitars.

[eastona]

I put four wings on last summer. I used 2 different methods. Front wings I used an earlex HVLP (I'll hunt out the type, it has a small blower with a hoover type hose to the gun) and the rears I used a small gloss paint roller. All with cellulose.

The paint roller worked surprisingly well, but did take quite some time to flatten out. It's given a decent finish and I wouldn't hesitate to use it again. Especially in the summer.

The HVLP setup was quicker. the first wing looked rubbish and still took loads of flattening the second was acceptable and just took a bit of flattening. I put on a thick coat, then progressively thinner.

With both methods as a base I used a couple of coats of high build primer, cut back between primer coats.

I got a local paint shop to match the paint using a chunk of the old wing, it took them a week, but is pretty much identical to the old paint except under certain streetlights where it looks very, very slightly different.

When I do Maurice the traveller I'll probably use the HVLP because it's the whole car I need to do. I may have cracked it by the time I finish the car!

I visited the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe once, when I went for a job there quite some time ago. Final paint prep was amazing, imperceptible blemishes went back for refinishing.

Andrew

[eastona]

The HV1900 or 2900 looks the closes to what I've got. Only thing is the paint reservoir isn't very large.

Andrew