Please don't laugh me off the forum experts.

I posted a week ago about a painting question after seeing all the knowledgeable people here posting online. Long story short, I do landscape and farm work and I decided to paint some of the John Deere's to help prevent rust and make them look better over-all. I started with sanding, primer, and rustoleum tractor "rattle cans." I wasn't happy, a bit of flaking early on, and the paint just didn't look "durable." I had initially picked up a $50.00 gallon of John Deere OEM paint which was just sitting in the garage. So I came up with the beautiful idea, I'm going to go get me some sprayers and spray my good paint instead of wasting some nice OEM paint and spending more on these rattle cans.

So I went to HF to get some beginner guns. A few bought, a few returned before I found a gun that I like for a "beginner." Now I'm trying to adjust it. I started spraying base although I'll have to sand it back down, I'm just getting the "feel" for it. Thinning the paint less than 10% and the guns shooting it out pretty good, almost too good.

The issue I'm having is it's spraying what I would call "heavy." While I'm still getting used to it and trying to keep moving with the gun, it's hard starting on something so complicated with lots of tight areas to work in. So my question is which adjustment do I need to dial in for it spraying heavy? Would this be the air adjustment on the bottom, the spray pattern, or the other adjustment?

Pretty sure you need to turn down your fluid control if too much paint is coming out.

Tape some 16" wide x 24" long masking paper to a wall in your booth.

With the gun empty back the fluid control knob all the out until you can squeeze the trigger full open. Now holding the trigger full open begin turning the fluid knob back in until you feel the trigger being forced closed. Release the trigger and turn the fluid knob another 1/4 turn in.

With trigger pulled full open adjust the air pressure coming into your gun to the manufacturer's recommended setting.

With RTS paint in your gun, hold it the proper distance from the paper (usually somewhere around 6" but read you gun specs) and pull the trigger full open for 1 second and release.

Look at the pattern closely. Should resemble a cigar shape with no curves or heavy spots at each end. You can adjust this with the fan control to some degree.
There should be no runs in the paint. If there are then turn you fluid knob in 1/2 turn more, recheck your air pressure and then shoot another 1 second blast.

Repeat until you have a cigar shaped pattern with consistently fine drops throughout. No runs, no blank spots.

By the way, I am not a fan of HF spray guns as they are extremely low quality. I know many guys use them because they are inexpensive but there is a reason they are cheap.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:Tape some 16" wide x 24" long masking paper to a wall in your booth.

With the gun empty back the fluid control knob all the out until you can squeeze the trigger full open. Now holding the trigger full open begin turning the fluid knob back in until you feel the trigger being forced closed. Release the trigger and turn the fluid knob another 1/4 turn in.

With trigger pulled full open adjust the air pressure coming into your gun to the manufacturer's recommended setting.

With RTS paint in your gun, hold it the proper distance from the paper (usually somewhere around 6" but read you gun specs) and pull the trigger full open for 1 second and release.

Look at the pattern closely. Should resemble a cigar shape with no curves or heavy spots at each end. You can adjust this with the fan control to some degree.
There should be no runs in the paint. If there are then turn you fluid knob in 1/2 turn more, recheck your air pressure and then shoot another 1 second blast.

Repeat until you have a cigar shaped pattern with consistently fine drops throughout. No runs, no blank spots.

By the way, I am not a fan of HF spray guns as they are extremely low quality. I know many guys use them because they are inexpensive but there is a reason they are cheap.

This should be a sticky! I'll cut and paste into a Word document for future reference.

HF spray guns are awful. Full of silicone, and we all know how good silicone is when mixed with auto body paint. HF does have some decent stuff, but paint guns are not among those. If I ever use mine, it will be to spray latex paint on the baseboards that I will eventually get around to installing, after I find out if my house is going to flood again this April. My wife is getting a little impatient.