Paint gun / paint question.

[studiog]

Hi everyone,
I am toying with the idea of shooting my car myself. I am only an occasional painter (haven't painted a car in 25 years but I did have very good results back then) and would be painting in my garage. I am thinking of using acrylic lacquer as I am farmiliar with it and the overspray doesn't make a sticky mess. I am thinking of trying a HVLP gun also. Does anyone have any comments regarding this combination and would I be crazy to do this in a ventilated garage. Is there a better way to go?
Thanks for your replies.

 

[tigernut]

I painted my 1968 Camaro back in 1988 with lacquer, inside my garage and it came out great. I just made a "improv" paint booth from cheap plastic sheeting around the car and used a large box fan to suck out the excess spray.

The nice think about lacquer is you can wetsand (1200+ grit) to remove minor imperfections before and after the clearcoat. It was easy to work with and cleanup, with what you describe as minimum "stickyness".

It was my first and so far, last attempt at painting a car. Probably will do my own vette in a couple of years.

Doug

 

[John Mcgraw]

Studiodog,

Lacquer is made-to-order for the self-painter! It dries so quick that any sort of spray booth is not necessary. Just sweep the floor and knock the cobwebs down and you are set to spray! This is especially true if you are shooting a solid color since you can just color-sand out an imperfections prior to buffing. Metallics are a little tricky in that the final coat has to be perfect since you can't color sand metallic very much before you have rings showing the different layers. I have been shooting lacquer in my garage for over 35 years and have turned out several award-winning paint jobs.
I tried several HVLP guns, and never found one that put the paint down as well as my old high pressure gun. I finally broke down a couple of months ago and bought one of the new SATA reduced pressure digital guns and I am tickled pink with the way it shoots! It was a lot of money to spend on a gun and I would not reccomend you spend this much unless you see yourself doing several paint jobs in the imediate future. That being said, I saw a guy selling his SATA Digital RP gun on Ebay after owning it only long enough to paint one car with it, and he got more for it than I paid for a new one! This is a gun that you can pay more than $600 for at your local supplier, or find for less than $400 with a little shopping on the web. The mark-up on such high end guns is pretty amazing.
You can still find a quality Binks/Devilbiss or CA technologies high pressure gravity feed gun for less than $250, and they will do a nice job. You can apply lacquer with a $40 Home Depot gun and with enough color-sanding it will look beautiful. I am shooting a fair amount of Urethane now, and the quality of the paint spray-out is a lot more important then when I was shooting all lacquer. The urethane is a lot harder to color sand!
Regards, John McGraw

 

[studiog]

I painted my 1968 Camaro back in 1988 with lacquer, inside my garage and it came out great. I just made a "improv" paint booth from cheap plastic sheeting around the car and used a large box fan to suck out the excess spray.

The nice think about lacquer is you can wetsand (1200+ grit) to remove minor imperfections before and after the clearcoat. It was easy to work with and cleanup, with what you describe as minimum "stickyness".

It was my first and so far, last attempt at painting a car. Probably will do my own vette in a couple of years.

Doug

Thanks for the info Doug

 

[studiog]

Studiodog,

Lacquer is made-to-order for the self-painter! It dries so quick that any sort of spray booth is not necessary. Just sweep the floor and knock the cobwebs down and you are set to spray! This is especially true if you are shooting a solid color since you can just color-sand out an imperfections prior to buffing. Metallics are a little tricky in that the final coat has to be perfect since you can't color sand metallic very much before you have rings showing the different layers. I have been shooting lacquer in my garage for over 35 years and have turned out several award-winning paint jobs.
I tried several HVLP guns, and never found one that put the paint down as well as my old high pressure gun. I finally broke down a couple of months ago and bought one of the new SATA reduced pressure digital guns and I am tickled pink with the way it shoots! It was a lot of money to spend on a gun and I would not reccomend you spend this much unless you see yourself doing several paint jobs in the imediate future. That being said, I saw a guy selling his SATA Digital RP gun on Ebay after owning it only long enough to paint one car with it, and he got more for it than I paid for a new one! This is a gun that you can pay more than $600 for at your local supplier, or find for less than $400 with a little shopping on the web. The mark-up on such high end guns is pretty amazing.
You can still find a quality Binks/Devilbiss or CA technologies high pressure gravity feed gun for less than $250, and they will do a nice job. You can apply lacquer with a $40 Home Depot gun and with enough color-sanding it will look beautiful. I am shooting a fair amount of Urethane now, and the quality of the paint spray-out is a lot more important then when I was shooting all lacquer. The urethane is a lot harder to color sand!
Regards, John McGraw

I was hoping I'd get a reply from you John, as I value your advice. Thanks much. That is great encouragement.