Spraying, what's necessary?

Captain Slow IRL

What kind of equipment would you need to spray a car, ignoring the prep work.

A compressor is an obvious requirement but what capacity and what pressure is required to spray?

What is the difference between gravity and suction feed guns? Are there (dis)advantages to either? Also, what do the different nozzle's achieve?

Owen

Compressor capacity will be dependent on the gun you choose. Guns will have a rated pressure they need to operate at - so choose the gun first, compressor second. Guns running from a compressor will also need a pressure regulator, and water trap.

Gravity feed guns are my preference, they allow the paint (IMHO - others have different views) to drain into the spraying chamber, whereas the suction will a different kettle of fish. I guess Gravity allows you to get every bit of the paint down into the gun, and suction is like trying to get that last bit of coke from your McDonalds cup up with a straw. They're 6 to one, half dozen the other.

Different needle sizes allow you to atomise thicker or thinner liquids. I use a 1.3 needle for my base coat, and a 1.5 for the thicker lacquer. Some people use 0.8 for base, and 1.8 for lacquer, but again, this will be down to your paint - and the manufacturers of both the paint and gun will give their recommendation for needle size.

Owen

Forgot to say the Haynes bodywork manual is actually pretty good. It's old content, really old, but a lot of it rings true for today.

Buford T Justice

PaintDoctor, Is there a step by step guide online for the basics of spray painting?

Need to repaint the bottom half of my camper at some stage..

Thanks

Owen

There's some pretty good tutorials on Youtube and Videojug. There's a few spraying schools in the UK and the USA who've videod their classes and stuck them up there.