HVLP guns

[Hawaiilad]

I have never been good with a rattle can at spraying anything I build, and I thought of the HVLP guns sold on line at Harbor Freight. I wondered what guns you all used and are any of the guns sold at HF any good, Not sure if I will like this or not, so I don't wish to spend allot of money on one right now

[Steve_S]

I have an Earlex 3500 HVLP that is great for items larger than a 1' cube. Easy to use and clean up. It isn't very good at smaller things like 6" - 8" boxes where you want to spray the inside or not over-spray details. Greatest thing is that the system is completely self contained and you don't need a compressor. You are suppose to spray from 12" away and the finish surface dries very quickly.

I bought one of the HF HVLP guns and have had mixed results. Some of it could just be my own talent level. You will need a compressor, inline filter and a regulator in addition to the gun. I use a pancake compressor and it can work for smaller items before you need to wait for the pressure to come back up. Overspray was a bigger problem with this gun than the Earlex with a bigger spray pattern.

Another option for smaller items can be an air brush. I went through several brands before figuring they all had quirks. Biggest thing is to make sure the airbrush has the right size needles for the finish you want. All of them can spray "air brush" paint and liquids thinned to consistency of milk. If you want to spray many of the water based finishes or latex paints you need to change the needle assemblies and some of the guns don't allow that or have the larger sizes. Go to a hobby or art store for more advise on these.

Steve.

[Bill Wilson]

I have a couple gravity feed, HVLP guns. One is from Grizzly and is a small detail gun. Works great for smaller projects. The other one is a full size gun that I bought at Home Depot. I've only ever used either of these to spray shellac and they work well for that, but I can't vouch for their ability to spray other materials. Much has to do with the tip size. I think the full size gun has a 1.2mm or 1.4mm tip and the detail gun is a .8mm tip. Neither of these guns were very expensive. I run them off of my 5hp, 25 gallon compressor.

[evilbadger]

I have the Earlex HV5500. Clean up is easy, it is a self contained system and does a nice job.
When I first got it I was spraying latex paint with it and going by the instructions I had to thin the paint way down almost scary how much it needed to be thinned. I could not believe how well everything covered with the paint that thin. It will definitely make your paint go farther.
I have also run shellac through it, all I can say is make sure you wear a respirator because I didn't and it took a few days for me to be "right" again. The shellac also needed thinning so it was like breathing a denatured alcohol mist while spraying.