Looking for a cheap way to paint a wood shed without rollers or brushes.
Looking at Harbor Freight's offerings I see this for $20:
But when I checked with my local paint shop where I'm buying the paint and I'm told that such a setup is good for oil-based paints but not for latex (which is too "granular", apparently).
I looked at the airless sprayers, but $200-500 for a one-time tool is more than I want to spend.
Is it true that the above sprayer won't work with latex house paint (a primer/sealer and a flat finish coat)?
Other ideas?
I have gobs of air pressure and volume available.
The appearance of the finish isn't important; I'm the only one who'll see it.
The gun is designed for auto paint. I'm guessing the gun will put on the paint too thinly - that is, you'd have to dilute the paint like crazy, then apply 27 coats.
That type of gun requires very thin paint. Good for lacquer and such. It won't work with latex unless you thin it down so much that it will take 25 or more coats to cover. You can brush or roll it in a fraction of the time. Do NOT, let me repeat, do NOT get a Wagner spray gun. Worst piece of crap ever invented.
By the time you decide what to do, you could have had one coat rolled on already.
Binks gun with a one gallon pressure feed... Amazing how fast you can spray a gallon of paint. I've never had problems spraying latex either, though as others mention spray is not the best application method, and may be problematic in the future.
IMHO, that spray gun will probably work OK. You'll need a reasonable sized compressor to make it work. I'd guess it really uses more than 6 CFM...
I believe the consensus is (and I would agree) that the gun you're looking at is not designed nor intended to use with latex paint. I'd buy a Wagner from Home Depot before I tried running latex through your rig. Better, rent an airless. It'll probably take you longer to go get it clean it up and return it than it will to paint the shed.
Harbor Freight has a "High Volume/Low Pressure" spray "kit" that included the blower. It's not all that different from the "spray" gadgets that used to come with some vacuum cleaners.
With latex, you have to use the largest nozzle and add the stuff that make the paint worker with sprayers and, maybe, thin the paint a little to boot.
It's a little faster than brushing but you have to keep cleaning off the spray tip from dried paint. Clean up isn't too bad.
I find it more useful as a "sprayer" than as a paint set. But it was only about $70.
Going back to the original post - I'll pass on some history related by my grandfather.
He worked for Penn-Central railroad for most of his life, and for a good portion of it was in charge of a Cleveland area freight car maintainance center in. Freight cars are subjected to very harse conditions, and were painted with a very high solids, linseed oil based paint. Normally, each car was scheduled for repaint every three years, with an inspection at two.
They were manually scrubbed with a stiff brush and aggressive detergent, then scraped prior to painting. Painting was done by hand, with natural bristle brushes. According to him, brushing is the only way to ensure good adhesion - the bristle action loosens any remaining oxidation and creates a solid bond of the new paint with the old. ID numbers for logisitics were hand stencilled on each car, using a stiff brush and hand-cut stencils.
At one point in the late 60's, a "college hotshot" (grandpa's term) manager was hired, who determined that spraying the cars would save lots of time and money. Those in the know argued against, but were over-ruled, labelled as being resistant to change.
All the cars painted that summer were back on the siding by Thanksgiving, with paint peeling and missing ID numbers, and causing a major overtime and making a mess out of the central tracking system. Guess what happened to the "hotshot".....
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