Husky HVLP Spray Gun

[Daniel Moore]

I'm doing some painting on my car, and after ordering $200 worth of two-part primer, clear coat, and matched paint (quart of each), I ended up wasting quite a bit trying two old spray guns that didn't work. There were suction, spray, and valve problems, so the quite-a-bit of the catalyzed primer in the hoppers was useless by the time I smartened up and went to Home Depot and got a new gun.

The Husky HVLP is a gravity spray gun, and it works really well! There's no air leakage from any fittings, the trigger action is good, you can get a very light, controlled spray, and I really don't have anything bad to say about it. It was $80 that I was sorry to part with, but I'm glad I did it. The primer is drying now and I think it's going to come out great :thumbup: I like the gravity design much better than siphon feed.

Any tips on cleaning the gun quickly? Paint thinner just isn't getting the stuff out. I ended up using a soft scotch-brite pad all over it and got it clean, but it took the better part of an hour.

 

[Matt Shade]

As far as I know, most automotive paint is lacquer based. So you would need lacquer thinner to clean the gun rather than paint thinner. Sometimes acetone or mineral spirits will work well also depending on the type of paint you use.

 

[Daniel Moore]

I've tried lacquer thinner, but it just didn't do it. It seems that most people are happy with paint-coated spray gun hoppers (every tank I see has dried paint inside), so I'm guessing there is no easy way to do it.

As an update, the car is done and I think it came out very nicely giving my limited experience, and materials- namely a dust room! Spray guns work infinitely better than the aerosol auto paints I've used previously.

 

[SOLEIL]

I have done a lot of industrial coating using various systems. We usually had some MEK. We also used MEBK. Both are pretty nasty but very effective solvents. The way we kept the gravity feeders clean was to flush the gun with solvents under normal working pressure. I know this is probably not feasible for you as it requires a good volume of solvents. We would also use disposable stiff plastic liners that we would put in the hoppers. These liners may not be available for all types of guns. You can also fill the hopper with solvent and let it soak. This works most of the time. Using scotch brite will remove stuff but it also leaves scratches which will give the paint even more to stick to next time. Flushing the gun is very important to keep the needle and air ports clean. If it clogs up it is not very difficult to tear down and clean. What I did was easier than what you are doing. I used Graco components and am most familiar with these systems. The type of coatings you are applying are much less forgiving than the coatings I used. It has been about 3 years since I did it and much of the important details are lost at the moment. I won't remember everything until I start doing it again, lol.

Good luck!