Trying to learn how to spray. How much of a fan usually?

rustover

rustover

Member
When spraying how much of a fan do you guys usually use? I know on small parts it would vary greatly from say a fender or quarter panel. Today I painted a trunk pan and messed it up. First mistake I made was after it was ready and I had cleaned it, I forgot to tack off the panel and blow it off one final time. I did my first coat and realized it was full of trash. I also messed up on my spray pattern. When spraying the panel, I guess as I was coming across the panel and I didn't raise the gun as the panel raised up. The back of the pan turned out nice, but the front of the pan, I must have got it too wet. I was doing about a 50 percent overlap. The gun is an Devilbiss FLG4, 23 psi, fluid is out 2.25 turns and fan was 5 inches and I was about 6 inches of the panel. I will be wet sanding it tonight. To me the epoxy always looks better after it has flashed. I seem to spray it on the wet side. I'm wondering if I should tried opening the fan up ? and I have to get my technique right.






 
Steve, Its a 1.5, I wet sanded it tonight. Actually went quickly, with not much effort. There are just a few places I need to sand tomorrow. The epoxy was guming up the paper in a few places. Hopefully I can re-coat after work.
 
Spraying it too heavy, the gun needs to stay perpendicular to the surface as much as possible so twist your wrist and raise the gun as needed to follow the contour. 50% overlap is what I always use, adjust your application speed to lay down a thin wet coat. Turn your air pressure up and/or decrease the trigger pull if more atomization is needed for a thinner coat. Is that round circles of tape over your plug weld holes?-nice!
 
Thanks for the replies guys. It is full strength epoxy 1:1, might just be the flash also its just one coat. I will try to increase the pressure tonight. I may also turn the fluid knob in about .5 turn also.

Bob my wife gave me those round stickers. I figured they would just curl up once the paint hit them . They may work.
 
Tried it again tonight and still could not get it to lay flat. I increased the air pressure a bit and it seemed to be worse (orange peel). I switch back to the 1.3 that I used for the bottom and it helped a little but not much. The only other thing that changed with this gun since I used it last is I put a dekups system on it. I did the bottom a few weeks ago and it turned out nice.

I may be fighting the weather. Both evenings we had had thunderstorms here and I tried to paint this after the thunderstorms were gone. I noticed that tonight before spraying the humidity in the shop was around 70. After I had the fan on for a bit and I was done spraying it was maxed out. The air outside is thick and its foggy, so maybe that's the whole problem, I didn't even think about this until I had already messed it up again.

One other thing, I was trying to spray this from front to rear which is very hard to do. I switched to side to side and I think that will work better. I'm going to sand the whole thing Sunday evening and try it again Monday. Its suppose to be nice weather and I have the day off.
 
Ill show you what its doing.

If you have left over epoxy stir it with your stick, pull the stick out and blow on the fresh epoxy (with your mouth) thats on the stir stick, you can watch it creat the issue your having.

If your making passes on a panel and get towards the edge and back of the gun to where its still blowing air but no epoxy this will happen.

I can almost spray everything without this problen in a few small spots. But 90 percent of the time when this happens its just a tad to heavy orto slow.

Thier is a sweet spot but its a hard one to find.
 
I wouldn't kill yourself trying to make it perfect now, sand it and install it-then concentrate on spraying well-all those burned weld areas will need to be dressed and primered anyway
 
The gun your using is similar to the gti I use for primer.

Use the 1.3.

Fan 95%

Im not sure if your fliud adjustment is the same, but turn it out intil thier is 1/4 gap between the gun and knob.

Pressure 26 psi

Then look at the pattern on a test sheet if its even like a cigar about 10 in long its right on. Make sure its not wider in the center
 
Thanks guys, Underdog I will try those suggestions. Ive been using a 5 inch fan. I will open it up some more. Bob your right, I need to install it anyway, just wanted more practice spraying.
 
I tell ya, this thing is hard to spray for a rookie. I tried it one more time using my Eastwood Concours gun. It turned out ok, the best so far, but I still kinda messed it up in one area. Oh well I need a lot of practice.







Sanded with 180 one more time. Its time to quit playing around with it. I need to get the car ready, so that I can get it welded into the car. The next time I paint it, it will be in the car. I still got a lot of parts that I need to epoxy.





So far the only gun I have been able to lay down epoxy really nice is my Iwata lph80. Maybe that's telling me something.
 
Just too much material in that spot. Sometimes it's hard to be consistent with irregular shapes. That area is obviously the easiest to get paint on so it got a little too much. You might still need to choke your material down, and/or bump pressure up, and/or move a little faster through the straightaways.
 
If it makes you feel better, I'm fighting this lately as well. Didn't use to have the problem, must be getting over confident and laying too much!
 
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