Finishing Trimwork with an Airless Spraygun
A trim carpenter gets some tips on finishing his own work. June 8, 2007
Question
I am a finish carpenter/contractor and I do some of my own finishing. I have been using a conventional cup gun for clear coats and gotten pretty good results, but refilling the cup is a pain, as is being tied to the compressor. I would also like to paint house trim and exteriors. I'm wondering if an airless sprayer can wear both hats. I'm seen professional painters lay down a glass-like finish on trim with an airless, but I'm wondering if it would work for cabinets and built-ins, especially with WB finishes.
Forum Responses
(Finishing Forum)
From contributor P:
No problem at all. This is what I use this machine for every day. May want to find someone you know who you can watch and learn with. I use a Graco 395 for almost all my residential paint jobs. Thin the water based paints with latex paint thinner and it can look like glass!
From contributor A:
Having finished cabinets for 29 years with an airless, I can assure you that Graco fine finish tips, sometimes call dual-orifice, produce outstanding furniture grade finishes. Go to a professional paint store and ask them for a Graco part number 163-410 (my personal favorite). They cost about $30 versus $5-7 for a normal airless tip. They are twice as tall as a normal airless tip and are black in color. Besides having the right spray tip, the second tip I can give you is to have the correct retarder or combination of retarders.
From contributor S:
Thanks a lot for your responses. I appreciate you taking time to respond to my question. I will look into Graco with the fine finish tips.
From contributor J:
I work in a small cabinet shop that has used an airless sprayer for years with good results. We use a catalyzed varnish thinned 2:1. We use Graco 411 tips. An airless gun is very fast, but it produces quite a bit of overspray. For this reason we're going to switch to an air-assist when we wear out our current sprayer. One problem we have encountered is a spotty spray pattern when we tried thinning the varnish 4:1. We did find that a 3:1 mix works.
From contributor A:
Spend a little money on various temperature retarders before spending a lot of money on an air assisted model. I can lay down an absolute glass finish with no overspray using the correct blend of retarders. Talk to the manufacturer's chemist or tech department to get recommendations.
From contributor W:
Retarders have nothing to do with the amount of overspray, just retarding the drying time of the finish. If you are spraying lacquer or varnish (solvent or WB), use the 163-208 by Graco. If you are shooting paint, then the tip mentioned above, the 163-411, will work well.
The transfer rate of an air assisted airless gun is much higher than the airless because of the way that it atomizes the material and the speed at which the material comes off the tip. Both will lay down a near flawless finish. The air assisted gun just does it with less material.
