Thinning Acryllic Latex for spraying ??

[Bulkley]

This is a perennial problem for me. I have an HVLP sprayer which I use for many projects. At the moment, my wife and I are spraying cupboard doors. We use acryllic kitchen/bath paint. I dilute it about 10% with water to aid spraying, and add another 10% Floetrol to aid spread after contact. I still have too much "orange peel" effect for my taste. Have any of you found a better way to do this?

[dlminehart]

I've avoided the orange peel effect only by diluting to about 50%, at which point each coat is so thin that it takes about 5 coats instead of 1 or 2. Might work better with a Fuji or some other $400 HVLP sprayer instead of my HF cheapie. Also, it's possible that the right combination of tip size and air volume might cause less splatter.

[dkhoward]

I have sprayed a considerable amount of latex with my HF HVLP and have had the best success thinning about 30% and shooting a lot of very thing coats. It takes patience but I have been very satisfied with the results.

[cwsmith]

You didn't mention the particular brand of Kithen/Bath paint. I just finished brush and roller painting the kitchen in the old house we are remodeling and I thinned it about 15 % in order to get a decent spread with the brush and roller. I was using Behr and frankly the stuff is just too thick.

I sprayed quite a few things with regular laytex interior and exterior paints. ON the exterior of the current home I've sprayed the replacement doors and windows with very good results using about 40 or 50 % thinning. With the windows, they were white vinyl and I wanted them dark chocolate. Three coats provided great coverage.

Four years ago, we decided to go with vinyl cafe shutters on the second floor instead of curtains. The white vinyl shutters and trim pieces were painted the trim color of each room. Before painting, I put each shutter in a tub, used liquid Dawn detergent and a small brush to scrub off any oils left over from the manufacturing process. I then sprayed them. Again, it took about three, maybe four coats.

In all cases, I used nothing more than one of those small "spotting" guns and my Energair (IR) lubrincated, twin-tank, wheel barrel type compressor I had at the time. Pressure setting was 40 psi and I used a line filter w/ bowl to minimize any moisture and oil in the airstream. The gun was a very cheap unit that I bought at the tractor supply store that used to be in our area. Cheap, but it sprayed quite nice and I never had a problem with sputtering or anything. However, the small container needed to be filled often.

My compressor got recalled a couple of years ago, so last year summer I purchased a 33-gal, NL compressor and a new C-H siphon-feed gun. I sprayed some of the porch furniture using exterior latex. This new gun has a finer nozzle and it gave me some problems. Lots of spitting and was difficult to get the right consistancy. I also had problems with the temperature and humidity which seemed to cause the gun to glog all too easily. It got the job done, but it was frustrating. The bottom line was that the nozzle was just too fine for latex, even when it was thinned way down. I'm sure the weather conditions were a negative factor also.

Now I'm thinking of getting an HVLP gun. But I certainly don't want to spend $200 or more for one.

CWS

[Bulkley]

My HVLP sprayer is a Lemmer which I got on sale. It was expensive, but it's a good tool. It replaced a buzz-bomb style airless which tended to sputter all over everything.

Anyway, back to the paint. Have any of you tried mixing latex or acryllic with something other than water? How about paint thinner? Turpentine? I've heard of pros using ethylene-glycol (anti-freeze); know aything about that?

[Jan]

Try some XIM Latex Extender. That will actually slow the drying time. Try painting in the coolest part of the day to slow drying. You'll still have to thin and go with several coats to get a fine finish but there's no hurry.

[dlminehart]

Jan, good advice about painting while cool. I got stuck doing a kitchen cabinet door project in 95* temperatures with about 20% humidity. Should have waited until 6 a.m. the next morning!

[dlminehart]

CWS: I was using the Behr paint, and found it very viscous as well. Hard to level, even with Flotrol.