The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop The Never Ending Story, spray guns!!

Still undecided! Seems like there is no best choice when it comes to picking a gun. I suppose that there are as many opinions as to which is the best spray gun as there are spray gun models. Back in my day just about the only decision that a painter had to make, was weather to use a Binks #7 or a DeVilbiss MBC. Not being a professional, I don’t think I really need to spend five big ones on a gun for the kind of work that I am into now.
I just spent a day comparing DeVilbiss, Sharpe, Binks, Iwata (guess you can tell, I just got my April Eastwood catalog). They do however, offer a pretty good variety of spray guns for you to choose from. I’ll bet you could do a lot better on prices if you looked around. Seems like Eastwood bumps the price on bout everything they sell. I see they are still making my old Binks #7, at a whapping $459.99 and it comes complete with the overspray.

So what kind of noticeable differences are we looking at between a $54.99 budget HVLP and a $399.99 DeVilbiss GTi-620G? Is there a grand difference between the Startline and Finishline series. I see things like SS used on some, some claim to have anodized aluminum, does that mean the cheaper ones are pot metal and only have steel or brass innards? I mean even the HF guns have Brass tips and they are only $9.95, although I’m sure they have pot metal bodies.
Of course the rage now seems to be to switch over to HVLP but I’ve noticed some talk here of going one step further to LPLV that is supposed to cut down even further on the overspray. I can’t seem to find much on that, yet, it must be something new?
And now we have the “NEW” waterborne compatable guns. Is this the wave of the future, no more laquers, or solvent based, or 2K CA paints. All the resins in a water carrier thus eliminating all VOC’s, but what about rust? Steel, water and air always were the formula for rust.
I’m still, soooo confused, just to many choices!!!
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Well! You do get what you pay for. That's the way I always look at it. My sagola cost 254.00 and I've used it twice in about 10 yrs.
You could always buy a decent hvlp gun ( mid priced) and sell it on ebay after your done.

Denny,

LVLP vs HVLP -- This site says it\'s a toss up (3% over spray difference). Unless of course you do not have a big enough compressor for the needs of your HVLP gun.

Because I was a novice (and I still am) when I bought painting equipment (and I had a small compressor and a cheap moisture separator), I went with a two-stage turbine HVLP system (AccuSpray) with a non-bleed spray gun. I have no problems with moisture, any time of the year and at any level of relative humidity.

Here's a guess about having stainless parts - the HVLP guns are sold to be used with water-based paints (to meet local laws and to be used with latex house and woodworking paints). If you are washing equipment with water because you cannot use (or do not want to use) organic solvents for clean-up, you want non-rusting parts.

Tim

Sharpe makes an LVLP gun that uses 8 cfm its called a Razor. Be worth checking out if you are running a smaller compressor.

Thanks Tim, I read the write up that Eastwood did and it answers a lot of the questions that I had about the waterborne paints and equipment. Interesting statistics on the HVLP vs. LVLP, ya recall where ya saw that?
I looked at the Razors but that series seems to be the top of the line for the Sharpe guns.
I think I've made the decision about jumping into the HVLP equipment. Since I'm new to using them I ordered the three piece set of DeVilbiss Starterline guns. I can get my feet wet with them and if I need to can look into a better gun for topcoating later.
Thanks for the comments.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny, I would let you try all those guns out on my panel and then you would know exactly which one you want to use on yours

i like craftsmans best gun got 3 have many other types but when it comes down to spray i use only those never had one messup a paint job yet

Denny,

Once you have them figured out and know what you are doing, give me a call...I am just down Rt 34r and have a 53 that is approaching the paint stage, that you can continue practicing on!

I have a pair of 2-quart pressure pots that
I use DeVilbiss JGA guns with....I also have 4
DeVilbiss MBC's..3 Binks, 2 DeVilbiss instrument
panel guns, and one Sharp...My favorite gun is the
DeVilbiss MBC's...The worst gun, and the only reason I ever bought just one is the Sharp...
The HVLP guns were tried at GM, but declined to
use them...Bill B

That's interesting Bill. My nephew was on a work/school program in his last two years of high school. He was hired by the body shop that was training him after garaduation and got to be pretty good in the paint department. They had him doing the majority of it in fact. He worked at it for about 10years and decided that his health was more important than his carrier as a painter and is now serving an apprenticeship as a fitter. He doesn’t want anything to do with body work now. He was telling me that the inspectors (Illinois) would come around checking up on your equipment and it better look like you were using the HVLP guns or they would site you. He also said that he kept his Binks in the cabinet and his HVLP gun out on the hook for show.
I haven’t used them so I can’t comment yet and I’ll probably get slapped down by someone if I complain about it’s performance. I’ve talked to some guys that use them a lot, some that switch and a few old timers like me that are resisting the change.
I have used my MBC a lot. Not for cars though, we sprayed a product we made with lacquer and went through about 50 gallons every couple of months. That gun serviced us for about 10years till we quit making the product. Sprayed airplanes with it, trailers and a bunch of motorcycles. I still have the gun, a little worse for wear but still working the last time I used it, although it is due for a rebuild kit. I’m not certain but I think it has to be close to 40 years old by now.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny get a rebuild kit and tourch tip cleaner to clean passages or go to pawn shop. Get a gun and go home and put Thinner in it, if you have a good pattern of 3-4" at 6- 8" away from work, use it. Tell pawn shop that if it doesn't perform right, that you would like to return it for one that will. Why pay big $ for something you will use maybe 6 times.