DIY / Spray gun setup to paint truck?

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Matthew Jeschke

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I need to paint my entire Tahoe. I've used detail gun and small compressor to paint car parts before before. However, I'm thinking that'll be no fun for an entire truck.
  • I know I want a Gravity Fed gun.
  • Prefer to stay away from HVLP or LVLP hoopla, as those seem to require crazy high CFM compressors.
  • Would LOVE if possible to work with my pancake compressor or even be stand along electric sprayer. That's probably pretty wishful thinking though.

What equipment do I need? Anybody have experience with painting a car or truck at their house? There's TONS of info on the web about technique but very little on equipment :(
 

HiHoeSilver

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I need to paint my entire Tahoe. I've used detail gun and small compressor to paint car parts before before. However, I'm thinking that'll be no fun for an entire truck.
  • I know I want a Gravity Fed gun.
  • Prefer to stay away from HVLP or LVLP hoopla, as those seem to require crazy high CFM compressors.
  • Would LOVE if possible to work with my pancake compressor or even be stand along electric sprayer. That's probably pretty wishful thinking though.

What equipment do I need? Anybody have experience with painting a car or truck at their house? There's TONS of info on the web about technique but very little on equipment :(

@Sevenevez is your guy here.


https://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/petes-2003-denali-budget-build-thread.94266/page-147
 
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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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I had seen that post and looked online to see if I could find more info on those sprayers. About the only thing that came up was the Eastwood ad itself? Honestly, I was a little overwhelmed by the hundreds of pages of posts to that thread lol Maybe I just PM him.

Okay ask I read into that tread it answers most all of my questions :/ Still curious though does a compressor output more CFM at lower PSI? Mine says 2.6 CFM @ 90 PSI, but what about other pressures? Not exactly sure how compressors perform.
 
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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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Ha, I see I can hook to compressors up in parallel. I'll get a little bit larger used compressor and hook it up in parallel with my current pancake one which should suffice :) I think I got it all figured out. That gun looks like about as good as I can get for a crappy compressor setup. Thanks for the help.
 

willieboy240

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Honestly. If your not a painter. Or you don’t plan to paint a lot. Just get a harbor freight paint gun for 10 bucks. Play with it on a few scrap pieces. Then go to town. If you want quality. Bring it to a shop.
 

Tonyrodz

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Just the pancake itself won't be enough. I used to paint bumper covers a few years ago, used a small gravity feed gun with a 20-25 gal oil less compressor. It was good enough for that. I forget what the air was adjusted to on the gun. I had an adj regulator hooked up to it(the gun). Helped with the pattern and flow of the paint.
 
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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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Honestly. If your not a painter. Or you don’t plan to paint a lot. Just get a harbor freight paint gun for 10 bucks. Play with it on a few scrap pieces. Then go to town. If you want quality. Bring it to a shop.
I painted small peices in the past with barrowed equopment and hope to do more going forward. You can obtain near shop quality if you put in the time and have decent equipment. I had barrowed a cheap sprayer at first to paint a bumper. It turned out horribly bad.

Then I borrowed a detail gun for second project, to paint a fender. It didnt take much effort to get awesome results. Just those detail guns would take forever tonpaint an entire truck with.

I am done with bargan basement sprayers after that first experience. It took forever to fix the issues the gun created. It almost destroyed the bumper in the process. Nasty nasty orange peal.

My goal is to have a respectable paint job. To do my best and be proud of my work. Something most people wouldnt think was DIY... but prob not to rediculous lamborghini or ferrari standards ;)

And I have a few cars to paint so I want to get the right stuff.

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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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Just the pancake itself won't be enough. I used to paint bumper covers a few years ago, used a small gravity feed gun with a 20-25 gal oil less compressor. It was good enough for that. I forget what the air was adjusted to on the gun. I had an adj regulator hooked up to it(the gun). Helped with the pattern and flow of the paint.
I was just looking at those... not sure if that is something that is okay to buy at harbor freight, a compressor.

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Ha, I see I can hook to compressors up in parallel. I'll get a little bit larger used compressor and hook it up in parallel with my current pancake one which should suffice :) I think I got it all figured out. That gun looks like about as good as I can get for a crappy compressor setup. Thanks for the help.

I was thinking about this today. At harbor freight they have cheap expansion tanks (10 gal. I think) . I use one on my sandblaster and it greatly increased how long I can keep my foot on the pedal. Maybe put one of those into the mix and give yourself some extra time on the trigger.
 
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Matthew Jeschke

Matthew Jeschke

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I was thinking about this today. At harbor freight they have cheap expansion tanks (10 gal. I think) . I use one on my sandblaster and it greatly increased how long I can keep my foot on the pedal. Maybe put one of those into the mix and give yourself some extra time on the trigger.
Ha that was def on my mind too. I think my compressor is still to small though. Trying to figure out what will do a decent job with the eastwood guns. Gun says 6.5 cfm at 30psi.

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