HVLP Jet Size

[catceefer]

I am thinking of buying a small, cheap E-bay HVLP spraygun to paint some body repairs, mostly under carpets and the like. They seem to come with either 0.8mm or 1.5mm nozzles: which is likely to be most useful for general use? To my mind, the larger sounds logical, but I am not sure.

Regards,

James.

 

[pedrobedro]

.8 and 1mm are usually spot repair type guns with the small 100ml cups which you can get for around £10 delivered from ebay and they are handy for touching up and blowing in. Get one of those and a full size 600ml gun with a 1.4 tip and you will have most bases covered from doing spot repairs to painting panels.

 

[Flapdisk]

You really want about 1.3 to 1.5 for spraying the paint and 1.8 for primers As Pedro says 0.8 and 9 are a small spray for touch ups

 

[catceefer]

Pedro and Flapdisk,

Thank you for the information.

Regards,

James.

 

[catceefer]

I am rapidly concluding that my 1.5hp SIP Tornado compressor (8 cfm and 10 litres) is too small for anything much other than blowing up tyres and puffing away dust. However, has anyone actually used this size of compressor for spraying, be it with an older style gun or a modern HVLP device? If so, was it adequate, other than the engine presumably running most of the time?

Regards,


James.

 

[Flapdisk]

No mate it's too small

 

[Wallace]

I've been using one of the Ebay 0.8mm gravity guns for spraying Epoxy 121 and the air usage has been surprisingly low. I have a Clarke SE16C150 compressor and it hardly ever cuts in while spraying with that little gun.

 

[catceefer]

Thank you for the replies. It sounds as if I may have bought a bit of a white elephant rather than a compressor. PErhaps keep my eyes open for the next Aldi or Lidl offer, assuming that their compressors are more usable.

Regards,

James.

 

[MG David]

Due to the limits as to what can be run from a single 13amp plug it is often better to have 2 compressors rather than one. If you bought say a 2.5hp one and added it to the same air supply circuit the combined output would do quite well.

 

[pedrobedro]

I used to spray with a home made compressor and a SIP gravity gun and did whole cars a panel at a time with decent results. I have a 3hp SIP V twin direct drive and it will run my HVLP gun with 1.4 tip and recharge the 50 litre tankwithout stopping spraying.