Fence Painting

[Endulini]

Hi All,

I've got a stretch of fence to paint in the spring and was thinking of investing in a sprayer, are they any good? Can you use any make of fence paint in them or are the ones that are advertised really any different and specifically formulated for spraying (I only ask as the shade that the wife really wants isn't available in a spray bottle)? Is it possible to hire them.....?

Thanks

[Chewbacca]

I've tried a sprayer, and to be honest a bit of breeze and it blows back in yer face, any holes in the fence and it sprays all over next doors plants. So I went back to rubber gloves, put the stuff in a bucket and use a big brush. A bit slower, but not much.

[Another John]

I got a Cuprinol one a few years ago: so far I've used it only three times, but by god it was worth it! It really is SO much faster than brushing.

Well.... I used mine the first two times with the special Cuprinol thixotropic fence preserver, which I was buying in any case -- I splashed out (so to speak) on the sprayer in a fit of diy-mania.

I last used it a couple of years ago, and recently I noticed the O-rings were perishing [all things must pass: no complaints]. Soooo I thought: since this sprayer is on the way out, I'll try using cresote in it (Creoseal, to be precise: genuine creosote has recently acquired the toxicity of plutonium apparently). I tried the creoseal, and it sprays that fantastically well too: done my hut now. No doubt it's buggered the sprayer, but I don't care: life is [now] too short for me to spend hours tooling around with a brush.

Undoubtedly - haven't looked, but you can hire anything these days.

FINALLY: although fantastically efficient, the sprayer is also fantastically messy: you will get paint everywhere if you're not careful. Get a good decorator-sized dust sheet, and cover everything around the area you're spraying. Wear your overalls, and safety gogs (unless you're a speccy 4-eyes like me). And you need a very large sheet of cardboard (e.g. a collapsed large box), which you will pin behind the fence that you're spraying, so that you don't spray the neighbour's property. And don't spray in anything stronger than a very light breeze.

hth John

[Another John]

[F]

I tried this and will be using a brush next time. The spray either blew all over the place or clogged up the nozzle (Homebase sale so possibly old stock).

[Matty F]

Usually spraying a fence is a really messy business. I altered my fence so that each panel unbolts. Actually the rails have slots that hang on bolts. Now I can remove a section of fence, lay it down away from the road on old corrugated iron and spray it all over, even the underneath.

I have recently painted trellis, flat on a sheet of plastic. I sloshed the paint on with a hearth brush and wiped the excess off the plastic and reused it. That was easy enough. I was going to make a trough 1800x1200mm to dunk the panel in, but that would need a lot of paint.

[hugh]

You can only use the water based fence colouring in them not genuine preservative.

[John Rumm]

I found if you get a cheap pump up garden sprayer, and fill with proper cuprinol or similar through a cotton cloth filter to catch any bits. Then they work quite well. (don't omit the filter, or any fleck of rust from the can will clog the spray)

[hugh]

Yes they will work - for a while. I think it was Cuprinol (if not Ronseal) I asked but they did rule out using the shed and fence preserver in their spray, and no, they didn't market a suitable one.