Spray painting

I have got to paint the downstairs hall, stairway and 1st floor walls and ceilings so its quite a big job and with the colour change its going to need several coats, I am pondering with the idea of masking where I need to and using a spray gun ( all emulsion) . I watched one of those makeover shows usa and the guys said they would not use anything else when doing large areas and they appeared to have it done in no time with a perfect finish....question is do any of you guys use them or would recommend using them and whats the pros/cons

I would never consider their use for this type of work the amount of masking would be far to great, in the amount of time doing so you could be well on your way with brush and roller. Also the finish obtained with the gun would be different to the roller so any form of repair work would need do be done with the gun as opposed to the roller.

Dec

For what it`s worth I`ve only known 2 decs who have used ( airless) spray equipment - one years ago doing a new hospital directly employed by a large building co. And more recently a good friend ( decorator) who had an extension to a house with about a dozen small rooms to decorate and decided to buy a small kit as an investment . The dec is dead right , masking etc. takes a lot of time

Bodgeitandleggit said:

I watched one of those makeover shows .... and they appeared to have it done in no time with a perfect finish

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What you didn't see was the hours of preparation, and the other 4 attempts where it went wrong, and the days of cleaning up the mess afterwards.

The finish using airless is, or can be, superior to roller but as the dec said- you are stuffed when it comes to touching up.

You would need to layout a minimum of about £1500 for a decent Graco (or you could hire one).

Other than the time spent masking you also have to take into account the time spent cleaning out the hoses/gun, plus the wasted paint in the hoses.

In a standard room rolling is faster than spraying, but cutting in a wall often takes longer than rolling it (once you factor in climbing ladders etc).

Perhaps most importantly- the level of prep needs to be much, much higher. A rolled finish will hide minor imperfects, spraying will not. So spraying is great on new plaster but looks pants on aged walls.

By way of an example, i recently had a number of exterior doors to spray. The sanding/filling/sanding/filling/sanding/filling/sanding time was up to a 1000% longer than the prep needed if I were hand painting.

Airless spraying is at least 10 times faster than a roller, and it makes a much better finish. If you don't have an airless pump and you are not a professional painter, you can hire one.

Part of the secret with efficient spray painting is the masking. You need to use a masking dispenser to do it quickly. 3M do them plus masking tape that you can still peel off weeks after it applied and you use a thin plastic film alongside. Remember that you only have to mask once, whereas you have to cut in each coat with a brush and roller.

Since you will be spraying water-based paint, the only mess that you make, is a small amount of dust that you can vac up after, so you need to close doors to other parts of the building and wear a cap, or better a cotton spray sock and a particle mask.

At the end of the job you chase out the paint in the machine and the hose with water, so there's little waste. It takes about 10 minutes to set up the sprayer and fill it with paint ready to spray, and about 20 minutes to clean it out and pack it in the van. How long does it take to get the roller working and clean out the cover at the end of the day?

Its not just the Americans that spray paint, but also the Germans and the Swiss, and... many painters on the Continent, but we are catching up although painters who do spray in this country, keep this weapon a secret and make lost of money.