First paint job, few questions

Going to be trying my hand at painting my Jubilee soon, but I don't have a spray gun yet and not sure if I have enough air to do it with.
I've only got a 3 hp compressor with a 30 gal tank, but it does a pretty good job of keeping up with some of my air tools.
I was wondering if some of you guys could give me some recommendations on a sprayer and whether or not I have enough air. Thanks
 
Hi Crawdad. Welcome to the board. A 30 gallon tank and 3 h.p. compressor will more than meet your needs. My recommendation is a HVLP (high volume low pressure) sprayer. I've been using a relatively cheap one and it produces great results! A lot of brands are out there and they're not too expensive. The main thing is figuring out how to thin the paint down and what to use to do it. I'm still experimenting with that phase of it but I'm sure the guys with more experience on here will chime in with better information then me.
 
You can do it, but moisture is going to be your issue.
When you run a compressor constantly like it can take to do a
paint job, it will push water through your lines and into your paint.

Tractors aren't as bad as cars. You can do parts of the tractor
at a time and re-assemble it after it dries. Hood, fenders etc
An inline drier will help too. Remove any oilers if you have them.
Drain the moisture from the tank regularly.

As to the gun, how much/often are you going to paint?
On second thought, maybe that doesn't matter.
For a first try, I would buy a cheap Harbor Freight HVLP gun
and practice. Practice painting with it, practice cleaning it.
(HF, Menards, etc any big box store sells cheap paint guns)

Then see if you can paint with it again a week after you cleaned it.
They can be a bear to get clean and if they're not, they're toast.
So ruining a $15 HF cheapie is better than ruining a $300 gun.

I have expensive guns that I paint cars with. I paint most of
my tractors with the same HF cheapie I'm recommending.
 
The cheap HF gravity feed spray gun works just fine. You can also get a pack of the plastic replacement hoppers for under $10. After shooting I pull and toss the hopper I was using, pop on a clean new one and fill it with the solvent (mineral spirits for me) and spray. Then take down the trigger and valve assembly (easy) and brush and clean the parts.

Haven't looked, but bet HF has an inexpensive drier/filter you can put inline between compressor and gun to catch water droplets. Mine is on the compressor, so didn't have to buy one.
 
All of the replies are right on track. A few years ago one of my sons purchased a book on restoring tractor written by a guy who made his living doing it. His advice on painting was to practice on a flat part AT ALL ANGLES. The reason is that fplat parts are the easiest to sand back down when you mess up!

Even with the old type syphon feed guns most didn't want or require any more than 50-70PSI. Most shot paint well below that point. Besides an inline dryer a regulator may be needed.

Rick
 
If you go to the Paint and Bodywork Forum on this site you will find a wealth of information on painting your first tractor. Search the archives for whatever info you need, i.e. what paint, how to prepare, which sprayer etc. A lot of very good info. Look on the left of the page for Discussion Forums and click, then choose Paint and Bodywork.

Don't forget to check out the safety issues such as respirators. Hardners have isocyanates which are very bad for your lungs and central nervous system.
 
2 sugestions

1, paint in sections. IE. hang tin.

give the pump time to catch up and cool.

2, put synthetic oil in your compressor if it has palin compressor oil.
 
(quoted from post at 10:01:43 08/16/14) Don't forget to check out the safety issues such as respirators. Hardners have isocyanates which are very bad for your lungs and central nervous system.

Yes yes yes yes! Great point here. Let me add a few more, as you absolutely cannot afford your life to miss this:

1) Read the spec sheets and the label on the paint/hardeners. If you see isocyanates, be very very careful. That stuff will absolutely mess you up, even on the first shot, and there ain't no recovering. Don't want to sound like a scare tactic, but it's a serious deal.

2) I would recommend wearing long pants, a long sleeve shirt, a hat, rubber gloves, and glasses while painting. The nasty stuff can absorb in through your skin and even in through your eyes.

3) You will need a good respirator. Not just a paper mouth covering. Absolute best system painters use is a fresh air system, but of course that's way beyond the reach of most of us (including myself). At an absolute minimum, check out those 3M resperators at Lowes that have the replaceable cartridges. The cartridges I use are a 1/3 turn lock on. There may be some better options out there, some of the guys on here will probably chime in.

4) Keep in mind you'll need good lighting and ventilation.

Hope that helps.

Kevin
 
Thanks to all for your suggestions as well as your cautions. I have read them and I will be taking your advice.
On another note, I went to Harbor Freight today and picked up a cheap gun (of course most everything in there was). I think it was about $30. It had the little air pressure adjustment attachment right there at the gun. I plan to just play around with it and find something to practice on before I hit the tractor. We'll see how it goes.
 

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