The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop will detail gun work for primer, 1.0 nozzle

I need to primer some small pieces of the front suspension. The primer suggests using a 1.3 to 1.7 nozzle. My detail gun has a 1.0 for the larger nozzle. Do I need to thin the primer or??? Will it even work? I want to use the small gun so I do not waste a lot of paint by shooting a wide pattern out of my paint gun for a 1 inch wide part.

It should work fine on short run of small parts. Try it, on scrap, not much risk. What kind of detail gun.

Isn't the pattern width on your gun adjustable? I can set mine for a round pattern or a wider one. You just need to fiddle with the material and width knobs.
But a detail gun should work fine. You may need to thin a bit more than for one with a larger nozzle.

The small opening of 1.0 of your gun will lay down small paint droplets. You need to have larger droplets for primer. Primer is thicker so you need a larger opening. Prob 1.4-1.6. Your Paint data sheet should say what you need. You can but a $15 purple gun at harbor freight which comes with a 1.4 mm tip and drill it out to 1.6 if you need to ... it would take about a 1/16 inch Drill bit.
Works great.... do it all the time.
The needle is tapered so it will fit.

The last time I bought a HF gun, I had to go through about 15 to find one where the needle wasn’t rusted.

Mike

I have an Eastwood set of Contours guns. The large gun works great but... even when I dial the pattern width down I waste a lot of paint. Most of the paint misses parts that are long and thin in the steering assy, torsion bars and also parts with many nooks and cranny's like the A-Arms. Maybe that is just part of painting and I have to live with it. I am just trying to find a good way to save paint and still get a quality finish.
I will post some pictures in a week or so after I finish painting the front steering and suspension parts. I am quite pleased with the Eastwood Guns. For a rookie who has only used guns to paint house siding I really like the finish I am getting. Good coverage and only runs if you really overspray. Nooks and cranny's are still tough as the large gun is hard to maneuver.

Sometimes, that's just part of painting!!

I have found an airbrush works good for small parts and tight spaces.