Paint Setup Recommendations

I’m doing the tear down so I can refinish the engine bay of my firebird. What do you guys recommend from a painting setup standpoint?

Guns?
Regulators?
Filters?
Etc?

I already have a big enough compressor (The 2nd largest they sell at Lowes); so I’m not worried about capacity there. I have a basic water separator & regulator on it, and all the copper lines that are run are tilted with collectors/drains.

I doubt I’ll be spraying the whole car, but there will be lots of components getting sprayed. I could spray-bomb it, but I’d rather buy a decent gun setup.

Already planning on doing the poly-paint-booth setup when I do paint.

Buy everything from Eastwood.

Guns: http://www.eastwood.com/devilbiss-2-gun-kit-and-dekups-system-1.html

Separator: http://www.eastwood.com/ew-filter-separator-regulator-system.html

Stick this fucker on your gun: http://www.eastwood.com/mini-regulator-60-psi.html

With that setup you could paint your entire car and get a “shop quality” job with the right materials.

You still need A LOT of other little shit when you actually go to paint but that is your raw tools. Everything else you can get from the local paint/body shop.

/thread.

devilbiss.

^ Agree 100%. Don’t waste your money on anything else. Especially since I know the quality of job you expect from yourself. If you don’t use the right gun and get a shitty finish it’s not the “Eh, it’s my first time so I can live with it. But, I’ll get better.” Nope, it will be because you used a POS gun, the wrong tip size, and your pressure was way off. Practice dialing the gun in on scrap. Then do the car. But, get a good gun first.

Check out the videos on Eastwood’s website. They are about as good as they get without standing next to a guy that worked in a body shop for 30 years…

i loved the devilbliss i was using when i did my own paintwork. dont forget to add another regulator at the gun, makes things much easier.

Next question… do I really need 2 guns? (strange for me to say as I rarely question getting more tools)

this looks like a better gun; with more selection of tip size. (Some of the reviews were complaining about the primer gun/tip having too large of a orifice.

http://www.eastwood.com/devilbiss-finishline-and-dekups-kit.html

That is a good question. The problem is you will probably get different answers based on experience and preference.

Yes, “too large” of an orifice can cause “Spotting” in the primer. If you use a high build primer you likely won’t have an issue. But, you can certainly drop the tip size to a 1.8 for the 2k primer and be fine. If you are laying it on too thick dial the air down a bit (1/8 turn) and keep going.

As far as two guns…I have done both. Same gun for Primer, Base, and Clear AND two guns; 1 Primer, 1 Base and Clear. Honestly, how much time do you want to spend cleaning? If you don’t mind cleaning 2 guns I would suggest it.

ALWAYS gravity clean the color out of the gun prior to adding the clear to the gun.

If you use primer and color in the same gun you NEED to do a full clean when switching.

I think I disassembled and cleaned the Color/Clear gun maybe 3 times in three years as a precaution. But, I cleaned the Primer gun everytime I used it.

I have known guys to run reducer through their primer gun, switch tips, reload with color and go…then spend HOURS sanding out fisheyes.

For reference a FULL clean takes about 5-10 minutes.

Interesting, and ok, makes sense.

Looks like that’s going to be the 2nd next “major” purchase. Welder is first.

^ See above edit…

I’ll probably either do the double kit, or do 2 of the gun that I posted (with one dekups kit).

I would suggest the double kit. Purely on the fact that you are not a body shop and you are not painting 1,000 CFMs per day.

The quality of the double kit is more than what you need. Has the same amount of tip sizes, has a cleaning kit…and didn’t even notice before. They have a regulator in them now. 2 years ago they didn’t include it.

You can’t argue with $250 for that kit but you certainly don’t need to spend $500+ in just guns…AND you would still need to pick up a cleaning kit, cups, etc…

That kit is designed for the “weekend warrior” to paint their car on their own.


I’m thinking it is time for me to grab one of my own too… :slight_smile:

True points… but I can get 2 Finishline 4, cleaning kit, and the dekups starter kit for $400.

Eh, I’ve at least got a starting point, once I get to the primer phase then I can figure out exactly what guns to get.

lots of good infor in here so far…based on my VERY RECENT experience…

GET TWO GUNS.

one for primer and one for base/clear. I used a $14 harbor frieght gun(1.4mm orfice) for primers/sealers, and a DeVilbis StartingLine with a 1.2mm orfice for base/clear. I cannot rave enough about the Devilbis gun, I got it from a distributor TCPglobal via their ebay store (prices are cheaper than on their site). I used their website to read up on reviews and info, then found them on ebay to purchase. The gun was $80, and spec for spec equal or better than comparable guns priced over $100.

definitely get yourself a regulator for the gun itself (with gauge) I was painting at around 20-25psi at the gun for HVLP setups like I used. Also get a dessicant filter. They are cheap at HF at about $7… the way I set up my gun fittings was (from the end of the gun’s fitting) Regulator->dessicant filter->air fitting->air line/hose

I’d suggest buying the HF cheapie gun and practicing on some scrap cardboard or drywall to get a feel for it. There are a lot of settings on a gun to play with to get desired results, so def watch some reputable videos… you have fan-size of the spray pattern to adjust, air pressure, trigger catch point, atomization, etc. It will take playing with the dials to get the pattern where you want.

DirtyE30 was nice enough to stop by and look at my stuff and give me some pointers that really ended up making the difference… I’d def reccommend hitting him up for some tips if he’s not too busy (If he is, message me and maybe I can help)

Getting the necessary tools is an investment…the hardest part to swallow is going to be what it’s going to cost you in materials for this…

if you’re painting the engine bay and a handful of misc parts you’re probably going to need:

-Quart of base ($100-200 depending on paint code and brand you buy…I suggest Spies-Hecker or DuPont) I like using DuPont because its 50/50 ratio with reducer while Spies-Hecker tends to be 4:1, so you get less sprayable material from a quart (38oz at 4:1 vs. 64oz at 1:1)
-Reducer (DuPont needs it’s own brand BaseMaker which is pricey, about $40 for a quart, while other brands can just use any reducer…can get a gallon sometimes for about $20-30 of an economy brand)
-Quart of primer-sealer (if you want to fill fine scratches and smooth some things out you’ll also need High-Build primer-surfacer)…This is going to be about $50 in an economy brand if you get the matching activator/reducer (whichever the specific brand requires)
-Quart of Clear with matching hardener ($30-60 for economy brands)

so basically you’re looking at about $250-400 in materials or so as a walk-in customer to get what you need just to spray an engine bay and some other small parts, unless you know someone with access to a commercial account where they get major discounts. I bought 90% of my paint stuff at Napa on Wehrle…they give 10% discount to AAA members. For everything besides basecoat I used their economy brand Finish1 for the above price estimates

Watching videos will give you a feel for how fast/slow to move the gun along what you’re painting…but I’ve noticed most videos don’t explain how to overlap your passes…

your first pass, the fan pattern should be almost halfway off what you’re painting…do this to cut-in all your edges

the rest of the passes should have a half-overlap, meaning the top of the fan pattern should be almost right at the center of the last past (meaning every other pass lines up top-to-bottom of fan)

temperature is important as well…about 60* is where you really start pushing it, so if you’re planning to spray in the colder months you’ll have to heat the garage with something that doesn’t have an ignition source (so’s not to ignite paint/fumes)

keep the floor wet when painting, it captures most of the dust and when the cloud of paint in the air settles it doesn’t usually permanantly stain the garage floor and can be washed right off.

:tup: good luck!

---------- Post added at 09:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:39 AM ----------

the Finishline guns are above and beyond what you’ll need for a weekender/hobbyist… Their StartingLine guns are about 20% cheaper…the difference is the FinishLine guns’ internal parts are hard-annodized, the only other difference is what country it was assembled in (F.L. in USA, S.L. are assembled in Korea I think)

focus - thanks for the tips.

I’m planning on doing a DIY plastic sheet/filter/box fans paint booth… built one years ago with my brother. If I were back in WNY, I’d leverage him for materials (He’s been doing collision/body work for >30 years now); but we had a falling out a few years ago, and well, I’m now 2000 miles away in UT.

The prices are about what I figured though; and that’s not even any of the other prep materials (filler, paper, masking, etc). It’s not a cheap project, but it’s not a cheap hobby… that’s why we never add up receipts!

for tape and masking paper…HomeDepot or Lowes…1’ roll 180ft long is only $3 for the paper, and a 6pk of masking tape is like $20 and should last you WAYYYYY longer than one paintjob lol. I forgot you were in UT, nvm on the ‘stop-by-to-lend-some-tips’…that’s a little too far to lend a hand hahahaha

~ 31 hours one way by way of Truck/Trailer/Firebird… :slight_smile:

Or about 6 hours travel time by plane. LOL.

Thanks for such informative links, and are really helpful in getting proper stuff in decent price in a such way.

Good read, looks like ill have to wait awhile for it to warmup.

Well, just to give an update - I’m going to be shooting the Primer/Sealer in about a week or 2.

Setup I purchased:
DeVilbiss Finishline FLG4 gun
DeVilbiss Dekups 24oz disposable cup system
DeVilbiss DesiccantFilter/Dryer (QC3 I think it the Model number)
Dedicated 3/8" high-flow fittings
Dedicated 3/8" 25’ hose
A couple in-line desiccant filters to go right before the gun

Have the welding done, still have 2ish hours of weld grinding to do; then scuff everything with red scotchbrite. Then clean, clean, and clean some more… then paint.