Hey all, I'm close to finishing my first build and have been looking into a spraying set-up. I asked a friend who is a professional furniture builder and has years of experience in finishing and specialty painting and he actually highly recommended the $15 HVLP gun from Harbor Freight. I just happened to be headed there that day so I went ahead and bought one to hook up to my compressor and was excited about the very low cost of having a spraying set up... I actually bought the same gun that came with the attached regulator for around $29, and along with the needed filter, etc. I am in about $40... then I realized that my wee pancake compressor does not have a suitable CFM to make this gun work well. The gun requires 12 CFM at 40 ish PSI, my compressor is 2.5 CFM at 90 PSI. Even compensating for the different PSI, I don't think it will do the job. I looked into all the hacks to use HVLP with an undersized compressor and it essentially just meant more money (that I really don't have), and I don't want to mess up the last step on a project that I have spent as much time on as I have.... That being said, in an effort to go ahead and finish this instrument the way I want to (Oil varnish), I am back to brushing it on.
However, I am sure this will not be the only instrument I make and I also fully recognize the benefit of being a woodworker with an adequate spray rig, SO, I am considering purchasing an affordable turbine driven HVLP system. The same friend above also said the turbine system at HF is decent (https://www.harborfreight.com/high-v...kit-44677.html), but I have also looked at the Wagner Control Max system that is available just about everywhere (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Wagner-C...8080/207073102) and it seems promising. But my lack of experience has me uncertain. Are either of these suitable for spraying varnish or lacquer well enough for instrument building?
What do you use that you like? Any recommendations for me?... Just love to glean from the collective knowledge of the builders here!
Thanks in advance.
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