Preparing to Paint
Painting Tips:
Successful spray painting is a skill which requires knowledge of your equipment, familiarity with your paint materials and experience. Differences in paints, work materials and environmental conditions make every painting task unique. For best results, practice with your painting mixture on a scrap piece before beginning to paint your work material.
It is critical that the surface be properly prepared before painting. It will be difficult to achieve a satisfactory painted surface if the original surface is dirty, rough or wet.
Properly mask your paint surface from any adjacent areas you do not want to paint.
Use drop cloths or other covers to protect adjacent property from paint dust or overspray.
Paint Mixture:
Each paint mixture will vary. You may use solvent or water based paints. Each of these causes a different paint viscosity, and has a different flow rate and drying time. High viscosity is thick, like syrup. Low viscosity is thin, like water.
The purpose of the solvent is to make the paint liquid so it can be applied. Once applied, the solvent evaporates, leaving the pigment and its binders in place. The solvent is also used as a clean up medium. Paint mixtures which are to be sprayed are generally less viscous (thinner) than mixtures which are to be applied with a brush. Thus you will most often have to add extra solvent to a paint which is to be sprayed.
When paint is sprayed, it is broken into tiny droplets, then blown by
If the paint mixture is too thick, the droplets will not form a smooth layer, and the resulting surface can be described as “pebbly” or “orange peel”. If the paint mixture is too thin, the paint will run, forming long drips before they are thick enough to form a satisfactory coat. Vertical surfaces are more prone to “run” than horizontal surfaces due to the effect of gravity.
Applying the Paint:
In most cases, it is best to move the paint spray from side to side, overlapping the previous paint. In this way you will gradually build up the paint layer without leaving any obvious edges.
To paint in this way, the spray pattern should be set to vertical.
It is important to prevent excess paint at the beginning and end of each stroke. Holding the sprayer away from the work piece, squeeze the trigger to start the spray. Then move the spray gun in to within
As you work, carefully observe the way the paint accumulates on the work surface. It is more important to maintain a good paint surface than to form an opaque (thick) paint coat. You can always apply a second coat to get the coverage you want. If the surface is ruined, however, you will have to start over with surface preparation.
If the surface does not smooth out in a few seconds after applying the paint, your paint mixture is probably too thick. Thin your paint slightly and test on a piece of scrap material. If the paint goes on very thin and threatens to run, stop spraying immediately. Add more paint to your mixture to thicken the paint. Test on a piece of scrap material before resuming work.
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