Paint Sprayer Recs?

I have a lotta shit to paint coming up: cabinets, doors, trim, and about 2000sq feet of walls and ceiling. Is a sprayer a good idea to save a ton of time? Are more expensive ones more precise/less overspray/get clogged less? Are they all a bit fiddly?

Painting walls with a roller is pretty easy, but I'm a bit scared of cabinet doors and inside room doors looking smooth. My options are get an expensive one that does everything (in theory), or do all walls/ceiling with rollers and get a smaller? cheaper? sprayer for cabinets/doors. (I'd probably use a sprayer every other year for a home fence, too, and my wife is constantly rattle-canning furniture, so it will get used in the future).

This one is on sale, not cheap, but worth it?

https://www.amazon.com/Graco-Magnum-...language=en_US

I have the below one. I have used it to paint the exterior of two homes and a couple of bedrooms with good results. My major bitch is the nozzle that the paint sprays through is good as long as it is in use. You stop and it starts to plug up, so you have to keep moving until done. Once done, I have soaked the tip in everything to clean it out and need a new tip the next job as it is plugged. At $25 a tip, I have paid out more for tips than the machine.

Attachment 292989

^^When you stop spraying for any period of time, always set the spray gun in a bucket of water to keep the paint in the tip and tip housing from setting up. Having a little nylon brush to scrub the goop off helps too.

When cleaning, always spray clean water through the tip to unplug it (both forward and reverse). Then take the tip and tip housing off the gun and finish cleaning. That way the tip will be clog-free next time you need to use it.

Also, to prevent any tip clogs while spraying, ALWAYS strain your paint through a strainer bag before spraying, into a clean bucket that you spray out of. This fixes that problem 99.9%.

And yeah that Graco will get it done for a homeowner. I only comes with a 25 foot hose though. A 50 foot hose is pretty handy if you are painting exteriors.

I have the graco (or one like it a few years old) and it works fine. Do what Yeahman said above.

Sprayers are very good at some things, but a lot of the time the prep work and cleanup required negates any time savings or convenience. Plus a lot of paints and stains require backbrushing anyway so you are still brushing.
I've stained my whole log house with clear stain in the sprayer, but still had to back brush. Also had to brush on the colored stain first avoiding getting it on the chinking. Sprayer might have saved a little time, but not as much as I thought it would.

I don't feel comfortable enough to use the sprayer inside the house, luckily I don't need to because our interior is mostly unfinished logs.

Amateurs with paint sprayers in occupied houses = recipe for hilarity.

Always backroll or brush.

I wouldnt personally use an airless for cabinets. The pressure and fine spray just isn't there. Use compressed paint setup for that. For doors just airless and no backbrush (avoid paint brush lines).

I have used high end pro rigs and low end. I bought the crappy harbor freight one and did a 2600 sq ft house. It worked fine. It's limitation is the 25ft hose and I don't think adding a hose is an option with the size. I think it would spit a ton. If you don't need longer than 25ft and it's basically a one time deal go get the harbor freight.

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Originally Posted by RootSkier

Amateurs with paint sprayers

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edited for brevity.

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Originally Posted by RootSkier

Amateurs with paint sprayers in occupied houses = recipe for hilarity.

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Damn it!

Thanks for the advice everyone, it doesn't sound like I should get one then for an important first time project. nobody here is gushing about them. I thought it would be at least great for cabinets, but I guess my alternative for cabinets is an expensive roller with expensive paint? I'm a bit surprised that will look good, but I've never painted cabinets so I don't know shit. Color will be quite dark btw.

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Originally Posted by muted

Damn it!

Thanks for the advice everyone, it doesn't sound like I should get one then for an important first time project. nobody here is gushing about them. I thought it would be at least great for cabinets, but I guess my alternative for cabinets is an expensive roller with expensive paint? I'm a bit surprised that will look good, but I've never painted cabinets so I don't know shit. Color will be quite dark btw.

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What's wrong with just a paintbrush? And you can get a roller attachment for the sprayer BTW.

If brushing or rolling use flowtrol or other latex thinning product. It will allow some of the brush strokes to self level. Be careful with drips though. To be honest though if the choices are airless or brush/roller for cabinets spray them. They will look way better. Again buy the harbor freight and buy a nice fine tip and thin the paint.

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You probably want to use lacquer for the cabinets but please don't use a roller. Hvlp would be your best bet. If your back brushing/rolling your walls and lids its pretty hard to fuck up with an airless as long as your prep and masking is legit. You will want different tips for interior doors vs walls. Personally I don't back roll interior on smooth wall but I have been doing this a while and honed my spray technique painting cars way before I ever touched an airless. You have to go corner to corner touching up if you don't backroll because it adds a sheen to it.
X2 for putting your gun in a bucket of water when you set it down. Also when your done or in between colors I run several gallons of water through the lines with just a lil soap. Make sure you flush with clean water after soap.
Maybe look at a pawn shop for a sprayer with gun i have had good luck there. You won't notice the difference between a 2 thousand dollar airless and a cheap used one although I don't think I would bother with harbor freight. I typically try not to buy anything with a cord from them. Good luck

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Originally Posted by muted

Damn it!

Thanks for the advice everyone, it doesn't sound like I should get one then for an important first time project. nobody here is gushing about them. I thought it would be at least great for cabinets, but I guess my alternative for cabinets is an expensive roller with expensive paint? I'm a bit surprised that will look good, but I've never painted cabinets so I don't know shit. Color will be quite dark btw.

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You can do your cabinet doors with the Graco. The doors are obviously the most important part of painting cabinets--they have to look good. Take them down, remove all hardware, lay them flat on sawhorses or whatever in the garage or your shop, face up, and spray them that way. The paint will mostly level itself if you lay them flat like this. And they will look way better than brushing/rolling.

Then you have the matter of what to do with the interiors and exteriors of the cabinets. You can mask and spray but it is tricky to not get heavy spots and runs, especially trying to spray inside cabinets with an airless sprayer--it's tough to hit all the angles without heavy spots. So the next best option IMO is to use a mini-roller and brush. This will work fine for the interiors (which nobody will ever really see), and okay for the exteriors, though not as nice as a spray finish. Again, if you've sprayed the doors by laying them flat and they look really nice, people won't notice the little spaces in between as much. With the doors and hardware off the cabinets, you can do a good job rolling without leaving behind start marks, etc. I've painted cabinets this way and once the doors are up and new (brand new) hardware installed, they look great, and nobody really looks at anything except the doors anyway.

30 yars ago I had no money, 2 infants, the wife was not working, ugly dark/not very modern/cheapish but ok wood kitchen cabinets in a house I bought on the corporate move, so I painted kitchen cabinets with melamine paint using a foam roller, the paint was Benjamin moore flat white melamine it dryed brush stroke free & smooth it looked really good, the job cost me <100$ for 2 gallons of melamine and a few hundred $$$ for new hinges and pulls

In fact it ^^worked so good i did the ugly wooden dinning room table & chairs as well

you do not just open a can of paint you fuck around on the prep for a week cuz painting cabinets is a LOT of time & work, you gotta take off the doors, sand everything, fill holes, remove all hinges, remove knobs and do 2 coats all this while dozens of doors are sitting on the garage floor or SFT, a XXX-er tip is to pound a finishing nail into the corner of the back of each door about 1/8th of an inch which will keep the door off the floor, when yer done remove the nail and fill the hole with paint or filler

I bought this house from one of my people, the chinese guy had owned it and they cooked everything in gallons of oil which ended up on everything, they had also painted the cabinets with Varathane, not sure what their prep was like but the varathane & cooking oil congealed into a semi dry mess which would load up the sandpaper so I couldnt really sand so i was scraping and sanding for a week before painting

if the insides of the cabinets are ok don't paint them, in fact If you got nice enough looking modern cabinet boxes with the good hidden hinges that are in most newer houses now day and you are not destitute it might be easier and WAY nicer to just replace the doors ... that is what i would do right now

Thanks guys, I guess I'm swinging back to spraying cabinets only now. Lotsa good tips! /pun

XXX, I plan on replacing the kitchen faces eventually, you are convincing me that I should look into that sooner than later. There are a lot of holes to fill and sand due to a natural wood look they currently have. and I'm worried they will look weird due to some sanded edges at the corners, like they tried to make them look old and used, and will not look good when painted. Identical cabinets have been moved to the workshop though, so I'm just going to paint those, not replace, and if they look shitty oh well. But I'll try my best with a sprayer, workshop has to look 'good enough' for clients visiting.

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Originally Posted by muted

Thanks guys, I guess I'm swinging back to spraying cabinets only now. Lotsa good tips! /pun

XXX, I plan on replacing the kitchen faces eventually, you are convincing me that I should look into that sooner than later. There are a lot of holes to fill and sand due to a natural wood look they currently have. and I'm worried they will look weird due to some sanded edges at the corners, like they tried to make them look old and used, and will not look good when painted. Identical cabinets have been moved to the workshop though, so I'm just going to paint those, not replace, and if they look shitty oh well. But I'll try my best with a sprayer, workshop has to look 'good enough' for clients visiting.

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If your really worried about how the cabinet doors turn out (which it sounds like your not) you can buy no doors from cabinet mfgs extremely cheap. Like 8 bucks a door cheap. Just a thought depending on how many doors you have to do you could get new doors in wood or painted finish probably for not much more than the price of paint and mtls for the cabinets. Once again good luck

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Show us a pic of your cabinets right now. A lot depends on whether they have face frames or not, etc.

Think about whats your time worth ?

with a power drilI & screwdriver bit I could reface my kitchen in < a day with zero fuss and it would look new and great

the foam roller used with self leveling melamine paint actualy does a really nice job, it looked like a factory spray job

Thanks for the spray gun in water tip Yeahman, as I have my daughters house exterior coming up once the heat backs off and before ski season. On the tv I saw an ad for a Wagner painter that boasted being able to do a very narrow spray pattern for indoors. Maybe look at one of those for doing the cabinets?

Guys, my cabinet have particle board selves I would like to replace. Am I nuts and what should I use? I was thinking buying nicely veneered 4X8 and cutting them down to fit. My cabinets are a wood stain and satin lacquer finish, so how to finish the selves for inside the cabinets IYO?

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Originally Posted by muted

Thanks guys, I guess I'm swinging back to spraying cabinets only now.

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^ wise choice. moved this summer and wife did the cabinets outside and far too messy for anything indoors. good luck!

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Originally Posted by liv2ski

Guys, my cabinet have particle board selves I would like to replace. Am I nuts and what should I use? I was thinking buying nicely veneered 4X8 and cutting them down to fit. My cabinets are a wood stain and satin lacquer finish, so how to finish the selves for inside the cabinets IYO?

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Are they just floating on adjustable pins or are they attached to the carcass? If the former, you can get prefinished plywood in most species and eliminate the finishing problem except for the edging, and there you can just use edgebanding veneer. Look for a real supplier in your area rather than a big box store, but even Lowes and HD sell prefinished 3/4" maple, which will be a million times better than particle board.

you can buy prefinished 8' melamine painted shelving in 12 and 16 " widths with the edges are done & everything, you just whack off whatever you need

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Originally Posted by SirVicSmasher

If your really worried about how the cabinet doors turn out (which it sounds like your not) you can buy no doors from cabinet mfgs extremely cheap. Like 8 bucks a door cheap. Just a thought depending on how many doors you have to do you could get new doors in wood or painted finish probably for not much more than the price of paint and mtls for the cabinets. Once again good luck

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Originally Posted by RootSkier

Show us a pic of your cabinets right now. A lot depends on whether they have face frames or not, etc.

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Thanks guys. Looks like just buying them is the way to go if they are affordable. I'd prefer plain perfect squares/rectangles for these drawers, and the cabinet doors, with top-pull hardware for the drawers. Nothing fancy. Still have to paint them and the cabinet frames to match though.

I think have about 60 drawer faces though total, I'll see what it costs.

Attachment 293157

A few years ago I took all the faces and drawers out of my kitchen cabinets, sanded them down, stained and varnished them. May have taken me 2-3 weeks to do, but they did turn out real nice and with the new quartzite tops, they look damn nice.

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Originally Posted by muted

Thanks guys. Looks like just buying them is the way to go if they are affordable. I'd prefer plain perfect squares/rectangles for these drawers, and the cabinet doors, with top-pull hardware for the drawers. Nothing fancy. Still have to paint them and the cabinet frames to match though.

I think have about 60 drawer faces though total, I'll see what it costs.

Attachment 293157

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60 Drawer faces? Have you thought of just moving?

Im gonna guess by the time you finish, whether spraying or brushing, you are going to be an expert.

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Originally Posted by RootSkier

Amateurs with paint sprayers in occupied houses = recipe for hilarity.

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Amateurs spraying Lacquer in occupied houses = recipe for Hallucinations