How hard is spraying??

[johnnyb]

yes but car spayers always use full gloss with an opaque finiish making it much more demanding. a 10% gloss water based finish could probably be sprayed with a plant sprayer not so a 90% !!!
my point is that car body repair garages are very common. spraying furniture esp stripped stuff and repairs presents different problems like cleanliness and reactions also colour matching. colour matching is not a problem with vehicles(its the paint merchants problem) clenliness is easier as bodywork is flat no pores. the problem is getting a perfectly flat even gloss......with no imperfection whatsoever.

 

[engineer one]

yes but the advantage with car spraying is that once you have mastered the basics, you can easily rub out the finish to get the high gloss,
not least because you are working over quite a large area.

not so with furniture except the top and sides. certainly not with separate legs.

paul :wink:

 

[ivan]

Here's a helpful link:

http://www.targetcoatings.com/Images/PD ... anualR.pdf

Links's here in full so you can see it's published by a US based wood finish mfr. It deals with using their water based finishes, but also includes a lot of stuff on preparation, how and where to spray aimed at the small wodworing business/keen amateur, and compares the use and differences of three different HVLP spray systems - turbine, pressure pot, both on and off the gun. A good 50 odd page read.

Try here for a page on how to wave your gun about to paint differnt types of surface.

These 2 are the best one's I've found so far!

good luck...

 

[George_N]

Thanks for the links Ivan, Lots of good info there.

 

[gidon]

Neil
This article from FWW is quite good:
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/ ... px?id=2908
(If you don't have access to download the article PM me if you want and I'll send it to you ...)
I've never tried spraying myself - but very tempted reading this thread ...
Cheers
Gidon

 

[lemonjeff]

Ivan,
Just to add what George said, very useful links indeed.

Jeff.

 

[Scrit]

The rest of the time we just run thinners through and clean the pots out.

If you are running a trade shop where you have pre-cat in the gun week in, week out then flushing through works well enough with a weekly clean-out, however in the scenario where spraying is perhaps only a one day a week operation the gun is best cleaned out between sessions, especially if your work calls for a variety of finishing materials, such as pre-cat, water-based acrylic and French polish all of which can cross-contiminate if the gun hasn't been cleaned out thoroughly after use. What you are talking about is trade practice where the guns are in constant use on a single material which is a very different kettle of fish to the wider spectrum of work in a shop doing a mixture of new make and renovation work.

yes but car spayers always use full gloss with an opaque finish making it much more demanding.

Really? I've rarely had any success getting a car sprayer to deal with furniture components - for a start metal doesn't absorb your finish like wood can, as you've stated there's no need to color match stains on cars and sar sprayers rarely have to deal with fine detail which blocks up, or have to spray insides of cabinets. Similar but different skill I'd say

Scrit

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, fair point Scrit.

 

[neilc]

Great links Ivan and Gidon. Think I'll be using the water based stuff.
Thanks,
Neil.

 

[mailee]

Speaking as a professional car sprayer, easy it is not. Mind you the substrate we use nowadays is generally clear over base so as long as the base coat or colour coat is put on uniformly the laquer coat will give it the high gloss. Yes it can be flatted back and polished to a high sheen but the less work the better in a high volume environment like ours. Dust is your enemy and the more you can remove the better so surroundings are important. Definitely go for HVLP setup and if possible a paint with a high solids content which will fill better and give more coverage for a given pass. Supple wrist and triggering of the gun (pulling trigger before panel and releasing after panel) is the correct method of application and follow cojntour of panel where possible, (shoudln't be much of a problem with flat panels really though) Ultimately the best advice I can offer is practice, practice and more practice. Buy the best you can afford and read up on the subject well first. If you intend to use this method of finishing for a lot of your work then the outlay will be well worth it in the long run. As for cleaning run a pot of thinner through it afterwards and then immerse the aircap in clean thinner in the pot and it will be ready for use the next time. Run another quarter pot through before your next spray job and all should be well. Oh by the way I never finish my furniture by spraying myself as I have no where to spray that is clean enough. Oh just one more thing, never spray when it is damp or cold as it will effect the paint badly. A temperature of around 20 degrees is ideal if you can manage it.
Hope this helps. :wink:

 

[Steve Maskery]

Neil

You have been given lots of good advice here.

But.

W/B finishes vary. A lot. They are improving all the time, but, certainly until recently, the general consensus is that W/B finishes are inferior to organic ones. If they were better, everyone would use them. The reason I swapped from an Apollo 600 to an Apollo 800 was the extra power, which helps when trying to atomize a WB finish.

A recent article in Fww or perhaps PW, I forget, implied that the best modern WBs were even better than trad cellulose-based ones. I've not tried them so I can't comment from persomal experience, this is just what I have read.

I have tried WB in the past and it has been very disappointing. If they have improved, I'd be delighted to hear about it.

There is no easy solution, or at least, if there is, I've not found it yet.

Cheers
Steve