Home paint spray gun recommendation?

[Daubs]

Wife is super crafty, loves home projects. We are replacing all the base and trim in the house, painting it all white. She also wants to paint all the doors in the house. They are white now...she wants a slightly different color.

She wants a spray gun. Lots out there to choose from...Wagner, Graco, HPLV, airless, siphon feed.

I have a 60 gallon 240v air compressor in the shop, and have some HPLV guns for my truck project. We could probably make my guns work, but honestly, I'd rather get her own gun/system...

Recommendations?

 

[IndyGarage]

For indoor, the best is a turbine HVLP. I think Fuji is the best brand at the moment - I could be wrong. I bought an older Titan that was a rental unit for $75. Works good, but doesn't spray as fine as my shop hvlp guns.

 

[dffay]

She won’t be happy shooting water based latex out of your HVLP or conventional guns. They are high solids and they don’t lay out well. An interior/exterior Wagner or Graco system that can snorkel out of a paint can or bucket is really a good way to go. After shooting a color in water based, she can put the siphon into a bucket of diluted Simple Green and spray out that color. She can change to another in 5 minutes. Cleaning the paint hose and gun tip filters is easy.

 

[Handyandy23]

I've got a Wagner Flexio something or other electric paint gun, and I would absolutely NOT recommend it for indoor use. The damn thing splatters and oversprays everywhere. Takes me several minutes of fiddling with the nozzle and air settings to get a decent spray out of it. But then one little particle gets into it and you're starting all over again with setup.

And then even when it's running and set up properly, it seems to "mist" everything in the surrounding area lightly with paint. I think to use it to paint trim that's installed you'd have to tape off almost your entire floors, walls, and ceiling.

I bought it originally to paint a lot of baseboard before I installed it. I might use it for outdoor stuff like staining a fence in the future. Otherwise I regret purchasing this particular gun.

 

[RKA]

The handheld Graco's are pretty easy to use and fine finish tips are available for your trim work. You can use paint straight out of the can, no thinning or fiddling like with HVLP. Only issue are the smallish cups. Get extras, load up the cups and when one empties, load up the next and keep spraying.

 

[dffay]

Wagner has a nice set up of pouring the paint can right into the device container. Color changes or primer still go quickly.

When she wants to paint a room, she can enjoy a day and a half of masking for 20 minutes of shooting color.

 

[todd_fuller]

She won’t be happy shooting water based latex out of your HVLP or conventional guns.

To add to this....

For trim and doors, you probably don't want to spray latex anyways. My 5yo house has latex trim paint from the builder and it's still soft. There are so many good options out there that are designed for HVLP or airless. What people need to be looking for is a water based pigmented lacquer.

For instance, Target Coating's EM6500 has spray gun setup instructions in their data sheets. That's the product you want to use if you want to spray. Sherwin-Williams and all the other big brands have similar offerings for cabinet makers meant to be sprayed.

Another option is a product like CabinetCoat. Lays out well with a good brush. Once you consider then cost to get a decent spray rig, you may like the cost of these brush-on products.

 

[pcmeiners]

"My 5yo house has latex trim paint from the builder and it's still soft. "

Soft paint has nothing to do with an airless sprayer, they shoot latex just fine.

 

[tak1313]

Floetrol (avaialable at the big box store), slows the drying and improves flow (so you need to be a little more careful on vertical surfaces) when shooting latex paints - but that slower drying also allows for much better leveling and a smoother finish. This helps if you have problems with whatever you use spitting/spattering.

 

[calandrod]

So I was looking at the Fuji Mpx-30. Its around $300 but I have an entire house of indoor walls, trim, and doors to paint. Has anyone actually used one and find it worth it? I'm not sure if I want to go electric or hvlp. I have air no problem. Best surface finish is the most important thing.

 

[dnschmidt]

Having 50 automotive spray guns my recommendation would be to go airless with a fine finish tip. PPG Breakthrough and similar waterborne enamels from Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore which are specifically made for cabinet finishing are the way to go in your situation. These paints cost over $100 a gallon and they are worth it. You must do this outside as the overspray cannot be contained inside with any type of gun although the airless has the least overspray. The secret to good finishes is fine atomization of the paint. Fine atomization of the paint means overspray. You can't have one without the other.