Can anyone recommend a paint gun that is budget friendly but very good quality in a lot of ways? I would expect to pay over $100. Has anyone used the dekups disposable system? I was looking at the devilbiss finishline FLG4 kit on TCPGLOBAL's website. One of the kits have 4 tips for the gun so you can spray primer to clear through them. Is that a good idea or should I have a primer gun and a base/clear gun seperately? Can I get away with using a cheap harbour freight gun to shoot the epoxy primer only to get the bare metal sealed up? I know i'm going to have to sand it and do body work to the whole car anyway. My understanding so far is the more expensive the gun, the better they atomize the paint for less orangepeel or something like that and also better internal parts to withstand chemicals. I imagine that I will be priming the car within a month or two, then continue working on other things like drivetrain mock up and electrical layout as well as taking care of small dents here and there, and then hopefully later this year when I have all the mock up stuff out of the way I will finish the body work and spray the color.
I use cheap ass HF guns for primer for many, many years. There will probably be 28 million reason why I shouldn't, but what do I know ?
I use one gun with a larger tip for primer and the same one for chassis parts etc. Get a good quality gun for the finish work and maintain it well. I use cheaper one for primer, but it needs to spray with as little orange peel as you can because that orange peel needs to be sanded flat before the color coats go on.
HF just had their $29.99 spray guns on sale for $9.99. I bought one to use for upholstery glue for my interior and it looks pretty good-but, I haven't tried it yet and I am not a spray gun guru.
Check out the 3M accuspray primer gun. Lays out rel nice with minimal overspray. Also check out the 3M pps system for mixing and spraying paint. www.3mcollision.com
Most auto paint stores will sell you a kit that two or three guns for under a 100 bucks. These are a good value in that they have differrent tip sizes and are fairly good guns to get you started. Once you get the hang of painting, you can spend as much as you want, and yes, for final BC/CC, I use a Sata 4000. All the difference in the world. So you know, my primer gun is a cheap, less than 100$ gun from tractor supply. It sprays primer realy well considering that I don;t clean it as well as I should. Couple of guys at work thought they could use my primer gun to spray a final finish although that won't happen.
You get what you pay for. That being said, not everyone can or is willing to pay for a professional quality spray gun. I have been painting for 30 years and used seriously cheap guns to top quality. Too cheap and it's junk. If you want to paint BB size droplets, get a HF $9 gun. I have one for my students, only to show them the difference between it and a quality gun. Even they, high school students can see it is not worth the $9, and wont use it. Get something reasonable for your primer( doesn't have to be top of the line), but decent. I would suggest a separate gun for primer, color and clear. You will be happier. At the price of paint products, I hate the idea of you wasting good pricey materials with a junk gun.
You can buy spray guns all day long at swap meets for super cheap The last one I got was a like new (literally) Devilbiss JGA 502 for 15 bucks BTW Best gun ever in my book .... I have four
Thanks guys. I really like the 3m accuspray sytem for what i'm wanting to accomplish. I can see how the harbor freight gun would be a bad idea...I mean, I don't want to be blocking and sanding sooo much right of the bat and having tons of overspray to clean up. I would like to spray and end up with a fairly smooth primer coat to start with and the 3m gun looks great. I checked tcpglobal.com and they didn't have them on their site. Who is a good online dealer to purchase 3m products from?
Okay, the price for the 3m accuspray primer gun alone is 209.99 at a local supply store. I would still have to buy the cups and liners and probably another couple of disposable tips. That pushes the total price to just over 300 dollars. That's just too much for me to spend on a primer gun. Are there any suggestions that are in the 100-150 dollar range? Does anyone have pictures of black epoxy primer they sprayed with one?
Personally I would use a cheap gun for sure a Harbor Freight special...but I have a Binks for painting. There is more than one way to skin a cat, so check your budget, do some trial and error. I never use a nice, high end gun for priming...but some do.
I used a Devilbiss Starting line gun to spray my primer and it worked great. Under $100 and it sprayed out flat and very little overspray. If you look at the second build link in my signature you can see the results. tcp sells them for $80 I think in various tip configurations. I know high end guns make a difference but I think sometimes guys over exaggerate the downfalls of less expensive guns. If you were in a shop painting everyday then yes the difference is noticeable if you are doing this once it is not worth the additional cost.
I bought a HF gravity feed gun to spray moisture cure urethanes ( POR 15, Hirch miracle paint) and if I didn't get the gun clean I could just throw it away. The other day I had to seal and prime some parts and wanted to minimize waste so I dumped the primer into the HF gun. It worked well. I normally use a Binks 7 for priming but there is always material left in the cup that gets wasted. For 9.95 or 14.95 give it a shot.
I'm looking at this kit: http://www.tcpglobal.com/spraygundepot/itemdetail.aspx?itemno=DEV+FLG-670 or this one which has the disposable cups system: http://www.tcpglobal.com/spraygundepot/itemdetail.aspx?itemno=DEV+FLG4-GUN-13-18-D
I have a devilbis finish line with 1.3/1.5/1.8/2.2 tips. It sprayed just fine right out of the box. Then one day I was cleaning it and thought I really fucked it up. I inadvertently reamed the air cap holes . It's sprays 10 times better now!! I'm sure it no longer complies with what ever regulations its supposed to anymore but man what a difference. Aren't we supposed to hot rod our equipment too? I just clean it well when switching materials (pita) but it shoots heavy poly filler, high build primer, epoxy, enamel, single stage, BC/CC & lacquer ,
Eastwood has some great guns for a reasonal price, and quality much better than HF (my opinion). I'd recommend a Larry lyles DVD on paint guns and painting too.
My dad did paint work all his life and he used high end to low end guns for priming. I would only go high end on a gun that you are going to use to paint the car with. I would also use two different guns one for priming and one for the paint work. I think my dad would get a lot of paint stores and might have been EM guns. I have two or three here I can look and get his ideas on them. He has been retired for 12 years now (legally blind) but still knows his stuff. isnt there guns that are made now for the water based stuff?
if it's your first time painting buy a cheap gun and get use to using it. lot more to painting than just the gun. adjust air pressure , adjust spray pattern etc... learn to spray first then gun qaulity.
Bummer...typed out a big reply and the servers pffted it up....anyways...the $9 HF guns are good but not primer tip. They have a set that includes both the base/clear tip 1.4mm and primer tip 1.8mm and a detail gun with a 1.2mm tip and case, cups, wrenches brushes etc... Dkups and similar systems are great for easy cleanup and out-of-position spraying. My 2cents.
Oh yeah...they are like $50 bux and a pro painter I know used em here at my shop and liked em enough.
Any gun that has a 1.6 and larger is fine for primer. If you are going to use it just a few times go cheap. If not spend the money for a good one. I prefer Sata, I have one that is at least 15 years old. Keep it clean and it will last forever.
The quality of a gun makes a difference in how long it lasts and the type of finish you will get out of it. If you're interested in priming, check out the fluid tip requirements for the primer you're going to use and then buy a gun with the right capabilities. I had a siphon type CH gun that I was planning to use for my high build primer because the fluid tip was "ok" for the material. I wasted more material with that gun and made a mess with overspray. Then I got a DeVilbiss primer gun with the actual recommended tip. It was a gravity type HVLP gun and the difference was amazing. More material where I wanted it and almost no overspray= much less waste. The finish was better too so less material wasted in the blocking process. With the cost of primers and solvents these days a good gun is the biggest bargain out there!
I've heard this before. So i asked about this before both on here and in person at shops, buddies, and suppliers. I got answers that fall into 3 main categories for the reason: 1-That's the way I was taught 2-To avoid cross contamination 3-Different gun for different jobs The first category's answers were returned with another question of "ok why?" They didn't know and who taught them wasn't available to ask. So it's really a non answer. The second category's answers were pretty good and based on a production atmosphere. The guns need to be cleaned but if you are switching materials the guns need to be sanitized damn near. Not a huge problem for a DIY guy but lots of time and time is money for a place painting every day. It's actually cheaper for a shop to have a few (or1) 1000.00 guns a few 300.00 guns and a few 150.00 guns than it is to clean one to the Max several times a day. Also the painters didnt like to change the gun settings and pressures. The shop owners didnt want to trust the guys to clean the gun thoroughly enough to avoid headaches. It's just easier and people sleep better when they have different guns The third category of different gun for different jobs makes sense to a point. So I asked if the 1000.00 gun would spray the primers. Answers were Sure it will but the gun needs cleaned and then set differently and they'd need several tips for the guns & There's a chance of grabbing the wrong gun and mix up. But the cheaper guns won't do as good of a job with the atomization of clears. This boils down to being easier again. So then I asked if it is possible to just do everything with one gun. Sure , thats how most guys start, but its a pain if you'll be doing it every day. More than 3 paint jobs a year and you'll find it easier to have more than one gun. Most guys retire their all around to a primer gun and cough up some dough for a better atomizing base and clear gun. That's my findings and results of my homework. Your thoughts might be different or your quest for info might turn up different things.
i paint cars for a living and use HF guns for primer. you can get there HVLP on sale for $14.99 use them 5 times and toss them. they work great for a few times, well worth the money, i keep my $600+ satas at work
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