Beginning painter thread!

MSFarmer

New User
I have a lot of equipment laying around the shop that could really be ran through the auction, but I"d like to give it a paint job first to maximize the dollar.

Here is my plan:

I am going to buy a 6 ft disc tomorrow which I"ll use piddling around the house. Disc is in good working order, but The factory paint is in bad shape. I want to Paint it so that I can get a feel of what a bigger implement would be like and to see if i"m any good at painting. I"ve looked a lot of places and have seen a lot of different complicated opinions (which I"m sure are great, but I"m not brushed up on paint lingo and ppg could mean price per gallon for all I know currently). What I"m looking for here are the answers to these questions:

What"s a good low-medium price range gun for a beginner?

What type of promer/paint/hardener would be easiest and most reasonably priced that I could practice on some scrap metal with and then tackle this disc (all I know I I"m going with yellow, not sure I that matters)?

Any quick tips? (I.E. stand on one foot and hold your nose right while spraying)

I"m planning on using my old trailer mounted Wisconsin compressor for the gun and will probably use a sander over sandblasting for this first job (don"t want to invest too much too soon). What"s a goo procedure for cleaning out an air tank so that I don"t get bits of rust or anything jamming up the gun?

My budget is probably $500 hopefully less, and I am not at all above buying used stuff. I will have some time to assemble materials as I want to play with the disc for a couple weeks before I take it apart an paint it.

Are there any questions that I should have asked that I have not?

Any help is greatly appreciated and feel free to tear me to shreds if I"ve offended you with my newbie questions.
 
cheap, fast, easy, auction?

hvlp or syphon gun from (walmart, tractor supply or harbor freight ). can get one in the 20-35$ range to fit that bill.. usually a 1qt cup. gravity or bottom hanger.

use an inline air filter water seperator.. you can get disposable ones for about 6$$ and you toss them each day.. they fo inline ..

you will need a pressure regulator to match the guns needs .. on the cheap.. you can get orificed units with a small gauge or 2 in/out and a knob. .. not great.. but works.

alkyd enamil paint is as chap as it gets. it's also inexpensive too. mineral spirits for brushing and usually naptha for spraying.. but read the paint you get.. there are some different formulations that like other reducers.

hardner is it's own can of worms. It's one of those things where if you are not sensitive to it. you don't notice it. if you are sensitive to it. as little as a whif can put you out of commission.. supplied air kit will eat up your entire budget.

some people buy a good disposable carbon filter with 'rescue' hazmat filter and just limit exposure by painting open air, preferably in a breeze.

i'm not giving you any sugestions there other than to read lables,,, be informed before you make your choices..

lack of hardner in alkyd enamil paints means it takes longer to cure and may have less luster and scratch resistance. Given that this is an auction paint job.. .. um.. i doubt it matters. I'm not a fan of auction paint anyway.. so...

be safe.. good luck.

ps. I've painted a ton of tractors with alkyd and syn alkyd enamils. with some practice and care you can make great loking tractors for dollars, not hundreds of dollars.

Now if you want to get into auto quality finishes. research urethanes and such.

right now you are probably looking for a single stage alkyd or syn alkyd paint. magic has them. valspar, if you can find it has them. nason has them.. I currently use nason syn enamils since I can't get valspar anymore... i have tried majic.. it's probably the cheapest on the market...

do some reading on prep.

you will want to degrease and use a solvent or wax remover.. oils and water will cause visible and distracting blemishes and artifacts in the paint.

some guys degrease, pressure wash, then use a soap like purple stuff and another pressure wash, dry, sand and then primer and paint and then load and sell..
 
@soundguy

Hey man thanks for getting here so fast. There are bits of info in there that I've been looking everywhere for! Especially the in line filter, I didn't even think of that!

I will be keeping this 6 ft disc after I get done with it do I don't mind putting a little more money into the primer/paint/hardener this job, especially since it should not take much of any listed. I have a big shop with an overhang big enough to park a spray rig and a few tractors under so I think after hearing your advice on the hardener I will do it under the overhang.

Will my wife's porter cable belt sander help me get the sanding done? If so should I just try to find some aluminum oxide belts or is there anything in particular I should look for? Do you have any preferences on prep items such as wax/oil remover?

Again I really appreciate you takin time to help out!
 
I forgot to mention that the sander has the sawdust collection bag on it, not sure if running bits of rust through the system would hurt it or not.
 
a disc is gonna be a hard one to clean up.. I tend to not use belt sanders as they are only good for flats, and can take off metal fast.

i do like flap discs, and red and black 3m pads on a angle gringer or drill setup
 
Painting something like that you can do no wrong . If you want to learn mistakes paint a car. You have to read the tech sheets or application guide. Dry time between coats , mix ratios. There are alot of mistakes Last week I was painting parts in the sun and the surface temp of the parts got too hot. But I was shooting clear coat. The distance of the gun from the work is not so much a spec as an experiment. There is a sweet spot of max atomization for each spray gun. If you pull out past that point the droplets rejoin each other and become larger giving you more chance of runs at further distance from the work. Srray the work right in the most atomized point of the paint leaving the gun. If some sheet says 8-13 inches buy the sweet spot of the gun is at 6 inches from the work then six is the distance. You can fill the gun with water and hold it sideways to get and idea of where maximum atomization is occuring. Then clean out and add paint to check it again breifly before spraying.The readings on any Chinese gages are not accurate .
Filter everything.
 
Blanket statements are rarely 100% correct. Your statement saying no Chinese gauges are correct has virtually no chance of being correct itself.
 
Maybe you should just add something to the post about how to tell a quality imported gage from an inaccurate one. Somwhere in China there is a company that makes a really acurate gauge. Just google search quality part of China. I was trying to help the guy be NOT aggravated by one more thing that can go wrong.Change my statement to " cheap tools will annoy you". That could be 100% correct and is more what I meant. [ jeez didn't know there was a Chinese guy on here sorry}
 
i'm not chinese, however if I was, your racial statement might be offensive.

It's clear you don't do any internation sourcing of parts.

You can get cheap junk or as high quality as you can pay for, out of china.

Some of the most advanced non govt restricted electronics are coming out of chinese manufacturing plants right now.

It's the smae with tools. You can buy pure junk if you spec and pay for pure junk. You can buy quality if you spec and pay a lil more for quality.

Look for tools at larger chain stores, they will usually have return and warranty policies as good as any big name tool company... Also with a large chain, if multiples of 'type x' part start getting returned in droves.. they can go to the manufacturer to resolve the issue.

You can get inexpensive CH air metering valves at TSC and some walmarts. they DO work.. and you can verify they DO work if you have a set of test gauges. A set of reference gauges belongs in any shop doing repairs with any frequency. One must also keep 'scope' in perspective. The OP wants a low budget paint setup for some auction paint jobs. He doesn't need a new 1300$ upright air comp, a binks paint gun and a ton of other 500-2500$ equipment i could list. He wast an inexpensive gun to blow some inexpensive paint out on some stuff to make it look shiney instead of dull. You don't use a sledge hammer to drive a tack... keeping his 500$ budget in perspective, it's helpfull to provide advice and options within that budget, even if it is mentioned they are not production quality materials or tools, and if they are production quality tools, they may not have the lifespan of a more expensive brand name tool..e tc.

Speaking of tools again. have you noticed many 'american' branded tools are comming over hear by boat. sears/craftsman is but one example.

I hope there were no chinese people reading the forum thet you offended by your remarks...
 
Hey Hop Sing when I reffered to China at l used capital letters . Please do the same for America . You didn't even capitalize your own country.
 
hey racist comment maker .. i type on a phone. it's difficult enough just trying to get the correct letter to come up let alone make perfect punctuation and grammar as if it was an essay for high school english... whih it isn't. it's a casual discussion forum.

So lets recap...

my error was omitting a capitol letter...

yours was racist comments..

I'll keep my errors!
 
You had enough phone typing skills to critisize my comment to the original poster about how great foriegn made crap is. Concentrate on trying to help the original poster instead of worrying about what everyone else posts. I don't want to mess with you anyway because your Kung-Fu it is very good .
 
For something like that I'd just go over it with a cupped knotted wire brush to fit your angle grinder. Remove all loose paint and rust. Wipe down and Clean metal with thinner/solvent. For your first paint job just go to your local JD,CIH dealer pick out a color machinery paint and the primer they have to go with it. Then spray on the primer/paint and you're done.

Now for me I wouldn't use the real expensive paint($150gal) on something like that unless proper prep is done as in sandblasted to bare metal.

The last year I've used a cheaper urethane paint with hardner 8:1 from a paint store farm equipment like discs, augers etc. So far it seems pretty good and is supposed to weather well... time will tell.
 

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