Painting with a very small compressor

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:33 pm
Hey All,

I hope I don't get laughed off here with my first question but hey I have thick skin.

I want to shoot the roof of my car with a couple coats of clear.

Now here is where the laughs start. My compressor is 8 gallon, 1.3HP, 4.8 SCFM @ 40 PSI.
The gun is LVLP Spray It 33000

With the comp drain valve cracked open and a cheap Harbor Frieght filter at the gun will this work or not be worth the time?

Obviously with this question I have never tried painting a car but have a ton of time wet sanding and buffing on many.

Thanks for all responses, good or bad.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 7:14 pm
I've got to tell you.... I have absolutely no idea what will start happening when you do this.... I mean this is kind of like feeding a starving tiger with spoonfuls of hamburger, seriously. Guns are always understated (especially cheap ones) on their cfm consumption and compressors are always overstated (especially cheap ones) on cfm. 8 gallons is like nothing in the way of air storage. My thought would be the thing will just run wide open from the first trigger pull, then just kind of go wa-oh-wa-oh with a pulsing spray. And trust me, an expanse as large as a roof is not where you want that happening. And, yes as it heats up quickly it should become a rainmaker as well. Cracking the drain open with it running is just going to blow out more of your cfm..... But, hey, get an old fender, refrigerator door, and see what it does BEFORE you buy expensive clear.....
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 2:37 am
LVLP Spray It 33000 = RongFeng R500

The LVLP bit is a joke. The only thing "Low Volume" about that gun is the output. That said, it's actually not a bad gun for small parts and, in theory, its air usage is within the range of your compressor.

Painting a roof with it is entirely the wrong job for both the gun and the compressor, but, hey, life is full of challenges.

Open everything up fully and get in close, around 100-150mm from the panel, moving as fast as the gun will allow. Set air pressure at around 28psi or 2 bar at the inlet. Use slow hardener and thinners and you may have a chance of doing a half decent job.

With a bit of luck you'll get each coat done before the compressor overloads or overheats, or both. Probably a good idea to drain the compressor after each coat.
Chris



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:11 am
NFT5 wrote:
Open everything up fully and get in close, around 100-150mm from the panel, moving as fast as the gun will allow. Set air pressure at around 28psi or 2 bar at the inlet. Use slow hardener and thinners and you may have a chance of doing a half decent job.

With a bit of luck you'll get each coat done before the compressor overloads or overheats, or both. Probably a good idea to drain the compressor after each coat.


follow this and plan on more wet sanding.
if the reason your adding clear to the roof is clearcoat failure, adding more clear isnt a good solution.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:56 am
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Listen to these guys on this......
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:20 pm
I started out with a compressor like that and did an entire car with it.
The trick was to use a conventional gun that takes a lot less CFM.
I used a Binks 7 copy made by Astro.
It will spray pretty good at half the recommended pressure, around 35 psi
which will use half the CFM, around 4 CFM.
I sprayed a lot of stuff with that combination and it did really well.
Slow, but it worked good.

Here's the gun
http://www.spraygunworld.com/products/A ... PAS7SP.htm
JC.

(It's not custom painting-it's custom sanding)



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 2:03 pm
Thanks for the feedback. That is the kind of info I was hoping for.
The clearcoat hasnt failed yet but in due time its coming where the rest of the clear on the car looks great. Maybe I did a little more machine polishing on the roof.
Also, JCCLARK thanks for the link for the gun.
Still on the fence to do this since there is more negatives than positives.
Again, thanks for all the info.

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