Can you save time by Spray-Painting?

[sitefive]

I do not have the luxury to operate a paint sprayer at the moment, but soon could have the space for it.
I think I spend like 40% of the time when I make something just painting it,so I want to try to cut down some time in this area.
at the moment I pre-paint with a roller all the timber lengths before cutting them to sizes and screwing/glueing everything up which saves loads of time and leaves much better finish than painting with a roller after the furniture has been done , but I'm wondering if it would be faster using a spray paint gun once the piece of furniture is ready instead of pre-painting all the stuff before as I'm doing now.

My process when painting at the moment is:
2 coats of undercoat
sand everything
fill any blemishes
sand filler
2-3 coats of finish with small sanding if/when needed.
assemble the piece I'm making
1 extra coat where it's needed

I'm just failing to see how I could save time when using spraygun since I would still have to sand between the coats and fill any blemishes :roll:

Would be great If anyone could share some tips on your painting techniques.

 

[rafezetter]

Spray painting has a great many benefits if you have the space for it; here's the main ones that concern makers in particular.

- Spraying after completion means much less chance of paint going on glue contact surfaces, thus requiring removal.
- assembled furniture requires less space than a whole host of parts laid out, usually needing to be flat.
- you can hang items to be sprayed and just leave them there to dry, you're done.
- When hung you can spray BOTH sides during the same application (yes you can do that with brushing, but see #2 for space issues).
- When hung you don't have to move it about to get to all the sides and edges - so no awkward prints you missed that require sanding and a retouch.
- complicated shapes to paint (like stair spindles) are simplicity itself.
- Even oil based paint dries quicker when sprayed as you are laying down a thinner coat - thus speeding the time taken to build up coats for deep colour and solvent based paints don't raise grain and are harder wearing.
- no brush marks or orange peel effect of rollering.
- you can "mist" on a very light grey prime coat to reveal any blemishes you missed if you want perfection, and it'll dry so fast you'll be filling and sanding much quicker than brushed paint, even quick drying water based.
- you could (probably) even spray on dyes to get even coverage so less chances of tide marks.
- it gives you access to types of paint that cannot be brushed including epoxy based for high shine and "luxury look" without the VERY VERY time consuming flatting / polishing that brushed will always require.
- adding designs with masks etc, even complex ones is easy.

other benefits are:
- paint effect possibilites impossible any other way, such as a childrens toy chest with holographic glitter! Just look at hot rodded custom cars.

as far as the processes you list for painting ...... that's just finishing done properly, you'll never get away from that if you expect good prices for painted furniture. But as I said the waiting time will be reduced, and the sanding time will be minimal - no bumps lumps application marks to remove, so you WILL save time overall, and get a superior finish.

Practise.

There are times when you'll still need to do assembly after spraying instead of before, things like the insides of chests and such can be tricky for an amateur to get to the far corners easily as the angle of application is fairly critical, but mask the glue areas off and you'll be fine.

Practise

for painting techniques - as always youtube is your friend, the application technique is the same throughout. The main learning will come from the best methods for applying each sort of paint and effect you want; PSI, distance, size of needle, is ambient temp a factor today? In hotter or colder places you cannot spray over or under a set temp otherwise the paint will do very odd things that will require a recoat over the top or worst case - removal of the congealed gunk and starting again. I don't recommend the latter.

Practise

My last advice would be DON'T be tempted to cut corners in the beginning - spraypainting has been a high art for many many decades and the paint instructions and specifics are there for a reason, so learn to do it as required, even if you think it'll be fine - it might look fine maybe even for some while, but an irate customer with peeling paint won't do you any favors at all. Only years of experience will teach you when you might be able to bend the "rules" a bit and still get satisfactory results.

Buy NITRILE not LATEX gloves

oh very last advice DEGREASE EVERYTHING before spraying (yes even for waterbased for an ensured good result) - panelwipe flashes off very very fast but will ensure no "fisheyes" which will ruin your day, fast.

 

[doctor Bob]

To be honest I can't think of any benefits of spray painting. For the life of me I just don't understand why Ford or any car company don't use rollers to paint their cars.

Don't get me started on spraying ships, surely they could just float them in a vat of paint..............

 

[cammy9r]

You will save time on the application of the paint by spraying, all the other processes will take mostly the same time to do.
All the above points are valid, even doctor bobs. If i could roller paint onto cars my day job would be easier, even if it took a tiny bit longer

 

[marcros]

if you are struggling to use sandpaper correctly, I wouldnt even bother looking at a spray set-up.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I think I spend like 40% of the time when I make something just painting it,so I want to try to cut down some time in this area.

Prepping and finishing tasks vary according to the nature of the job in hand, or the general nature of your business specialism. But in my line of work, mostly one-off items of craft furniture, it's fairly typical to expend 25 - 30% of all production effort to these two tasks, with the finishes (dye, polish, etc) generally (but not always) applied with a spray gun. For example, if 100 hours is allocated for building a piece of furniture, that breaks down into about 75 hours for building, and about 25 hours for prepping and polishing.

I strongly suspect that spray application of suitable finishes will reduce your time on this task, but you do need the right set-up and to develop the skills (spray booth including extraction and appropriate light fittings, spray gun(s), heat, space for finished parts to cure, PPE, means of storage and disposal of some quite unpleasant chemicals, and time to learn spraying techniques). rafezetter has given you a pretty good run down of the characteristics of spray finishing. Slainte.

 

[tomatwark]

To be honest I can't think of any benefits of spray painting. For the life of me I just don't understand why Ford or any car company don't use rollers to paint their cars.

Don't get me started on spraying ships, surely they could just float them in a vat of paint..............

A roller is to easy a 1/2" paint brush gives a great finish.

 

[wolfey]

I think it depends on what your customer base is looking for finish wise, when we started making hand made kitchens 15 years ago a hand made kitchen was typically hand painted.
This worked great for us as we did not have the space or money to set up and run a spray shop.
As time has evolved with the company I would estimate we would loose around 50% of our customer base if we did not have our spray shop.
Most of our jobs are won due to our finish, Yet we can still hand paint if the client specifies it.

There is a little workshop just over the road from us that makes very nice hand made kitchens and is run by a lovely old boy in his late 60's with very old school technic (love popping over for a coffee and learning from him) His son has now started to take a leading roll as his dad starts to look at retirement and the first thing he has done is have an 800sqft purpose built spray shop built next door. He has taken on 4 more staff in the last 6 months due to the work load it has bought in. (plus if we are over run at times we can sub our spray work out to them)

Maybe as a starting transition for you it would be an idea to spray prime your product (this will get you used to the equipment and technic whilst not having to worry about the finish as much), then hand paint on top.
We still spray prime all our hand painted kitchens for speed as is much quicker.

 

[tomf]

 

[mailee]

Spot on advice all round. I would only add that if using water based a degreaser is a 'MUST' as it will fish eye up far easier than a solvent based product. Also the sanding process has to be better than hand painting due to the thinner paint coats. :wink:

 

[RobinBHM]

Be prepared to be shocked by the amount of paint you will use compared to roller or brush.

You could try a cheap earlex HVLP turbine set up, they can produce a good finish.