Thread: painting with a small compressor

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maby a couple storage tanks tied in to a simple air system, dry air regulator at the end of it. should keep up to a conventional gun anyway

For years all I had was a little Sears 20 gallon, 1.5 HP compressor and painted a few cars and boats with it. I even painted my '27 foot cruiser with two part urethane with it, an it came out like glass. It was fine for spraying paint, but things like sanders would run it dry.

No real secrets, but the newer High Volume, Low Pressure spray guns are much better than the old siphon guns IMO. I love the gravity feed guns, and they clean up so much easier. I just went to Harbor Freight to get a new gun to suppliment my Craftsman gun, and ended up buying 5 of thier gravity feed guns that were on sale for $ 9.95 each. The darned things worked great and I got as good of results as the more expensive guns I own.

There is no question that a big air compressor is one of the hardest working, most used tools in any shop, but that doesn't mean you absolutely can't do work without one. My shop compressor just fried a motor last weekend, and to get us out of a jam we bought a Harbor Freight on sale $ 149 3 hp/21 gallon model, and it got the job done. But boy is it noisy !!!!!!!!!

Oh, I have also used those round water filters that screw on right at the gun and they work great........just be sure to toss it if you start seeing water and put a new one on.



Don

good advice so far, I have actually found a DA sander and a hvlp gravity gun that are within my cfm range, and other than maybe pausing to let the compressor catch up, i'm not actually too worried about spraying paint with it, but because the DA sander will be used for much longer, I'm concerned about moisture buildup, I guess I can just change the disposable filter often and use a separate air hose for the paint gun, and hope for the best. Also, i'm just doing a cheap paint job to get some more experience under my belt, so the stakes aren't too high. If I still have the car when my shop is done I'll repaint with a larger compressor