I decided to give MagnaMax H2O a try, and I am having some trouble with bubbles in the finish on the table tops. A lot of bubbles. It’s pretty bad. Not having any on vertical surfaces.
My setup:
60 gal puma 5 HP compressor
Cat-x gun with 1.3 tip and pps cup
Using recommended 35 psi pressure at gun. I tried lowering the pressure to 29 and it did not help.

I called ca technologies and he suggested moving up to the 1.7 tip??? I just don’t think that’s right given how thin this stuff is.

Has anyone had success spraying this stuff? If so, can you provide me any help or guidance?

Thank you!

What film thickness? My guess is you are laying it on too thick.

That's my guess too.

Thick coats will cause issues with that. With water borne best to use a little thinner coats even though this is a urethane type coating still best to lean towards thinner coats.

Been using it consistently for a while now.

Definitely thin coats as all have said.

Also, do not rush drying. Limit air movement over it until it crust over. Bubbles get trapped when dries too fast.

I use fans to move air when I use the Agualente. Stopping that with the Magnamax H2O made a big difference.

Ive been spraying it straight with a 1.2 I cant imagine going to a 1.7

My biggest complaint is the stuff smells like rotten milk or something.

The reason they are likely suggesting a 1.7 tip is, i guess strangely, the reason you are seeing the other advice.

As others say, you need thin coats and want to not get air trapped in it.

While the 1.7 will not help with thickness (you'd obviously have to be more careful), it will atomize it less and entrap less air into it.

Put another way: the 1.3 tip may be breaking it up into small enough particles that you are getting a bunch of air trapped in the coat.

The 1.7 will definitely help with that if it's the issue.

But you do have to be more careful about coating thickness, turn down the fluid, etc.

At the same time, it is likely you can fix it with technique/lowering air as well, spraying thinner coats, and staying with a 1.3 tip.

I just ordered a 1.7 for the heck of it. I cant imagine being able to control WB with such a large tip. Ive never had a tip that large for clears. It would seem a precarious situation and nearly impossible on verticals but fun to try. I always assume that most just think WB clears are thick and need a bigger tip by default. That hasnt been the case across the board for me.

I thought the film build was likely the issue given the problem only showing up on horizontal surfaces though no mention of the substrate.

Yeah, magnamax h20 is definitely very thin (It's 18 seconds ford #4).

The only reason i'd consider giving it a try is that historically, CAT and ML campbell had a very close relationship.

(I dunno if this is still true after CAT was acquired by wagner).

CAT used to publish and update guides with good settings for ML Campbell products, and it used to be very easy to get MLC folks to help as well.

I haven't seen the guide updated in a while, however, so not sure if they still have the same close relationship they used to.

could also be a problem with low humidity. do spray thin as you can and still get nice flow.

I had that problem with it when spraying red oak. The first two coats look like hell, but the third coat just flattened out.