I went to use my blue HF spray gun today. Never had a problem with it. I took it apart to double check that I. Had cleaned it well enough last time I used it. When I removed the needle the packing nut came out. I've never touched it before. Well I tightened it back down and went to spray. Thankfully it was the interior floor and trunk area. Well the gun was leaking near the trigger and perhaps spitting at the tip. Any ideas what I did wrong? Perhaps tightened that packing nut too tight? And why did it come loose in the first place? Thankfully the paint wil dry and I can sand down the drips and re-shoot. When I took it apart after the somewhat disasterous session th epacking nut popped out again! A side question... are the purple, green, red, blue guns all the same except for the tip? If my blue one is buggered maybe. I can just swap tips? Body panels will get done with my DeVilbiss gun!
I don't know if there are similarities. One of the guys I go back and forth with on FB buys one model by the case when the have them on for 10 bucks each and considers them disposable. He paints a car with one and tosses it when the paint job is finished. My Develbiss gun got damaged when someone broke in the shop and tried to steal it and threw it at a K-9 dog. That just made the dog really mad. It has never worked right since.
I would go get another on but as you know the border is verboten. Princess Auto had the purple on on sale a couple of weeks back for $14.00CDN which is probably around ten US. But I thought I wouldn't need it. When I enquired they were sold out. They aren't bad guns but a packing nut trying to make a break for it? Twice? That's just weird...
Sounds like you have two problems. Purple, green, red, and blue from my experience are all the same, thrown together in 1 or 2 factories in China. QC is terrible, but they are cheap, and I use them as disposable primer guns. The packing nut problem is probably poor threads on the nut or gun body. The spitting issue sounds like the air pressure adjustment needle is closed too much. Running a pressure gauge at the gun?
Don't ya'll have some kind of mail service up there? You can order from HF online and they'll send it right to your house you know...
HF tools admittedly have quality problems. That being said, they are cheap enough and, when not defective, of high enough quality to be worth the hassle of occasional failures. I have two purple ($9) guns that have served me trouble free for many years. One has the (1.4?) tip that they come with which I use for finish coats. The other uses a larger tip I bought on the web site for spraying primer. I think the Mysterion I built that sold for $248,000 a couple years ago @ a Sotheby's auction that had a lime gold candy over white pearl paint job is a good endorsement for how well the guns work. My experience with spitting has been I didn't tighten the inner nozzle tight enough after cleaning so air leaks into the paint feed passage. Tell tale evidence is you see air bubbles in the paint cup when you pull the trigger. Simple fix, just take off the outer nozzle, cinch down on the inner nozzle and you are back in business.
Well I think I may have found the problem. First this blue gun had both the packing nut loose and the little nut at the bottom of the trigger loose as in not tightened at all. And I made a mistake in saying that I had used the gun before. I had used the cup on another gun but not the actual gun. I should have checked everything when I bought it! So everything is put back, tightened, cleaned, etc. I may use it today on the firewall of my project, we'll see. However I'm pretty sure I'll use my DeVilbiss Finishline on the outer body panels. My green gun I use for primer and haven't had any issues with it. I have a couple of red guns as well but I forget the tip size (I guess I got confused last time I was at HF and mistook them for red licorice!).
I don't get the concept of using a cheap gun if you have a half decent gun available. Unless you are throwing it in the garbage afterwards it makes zero sense.
I appreciate what you say and I'll probably go Finishline on the firewall as well but I was curious if I had corrected the problem on the HF gun. And to be honest I admit that as of lately I wonder if I make any sense at all...
Well I shot so e body panels outside today with my DeVilbiss gun. So much better. Howeever, just as I was starting shooting my crazy ass neighbour started to grind concrete making sure I would have dust in the paint. Quickly taped some plastics to his side of the canopy and place a sprinkler on my garden shed roof to combat the dust which it did. I would have told him to knock it off but I don't speak Bulgarianor Romanian or ??? Oh well I was going to cut polish the paint anyway...
Those guns need completely disassembled and cleaned before use, their full of crud and gooey sealant. Not a big deal, I do that with any gun before shooting. As you reassemble check every fitting. Also need conpletely disassembled and cleaned after, swishing some solvent in the cup and spraying it thru....might as well throw the gun away, its gonna be shit the next time you grab it.
I have one i use for primer,you cant beat the price of them.Ive painted some small stuff with them,definetly wouldnt trust it to paint something that i was worried about.For 10 bucks,if it screws up just toss it,not worth the gamble,Harvey