painting my Avid

[billpoore 2]

Hello All

I am just finishing recovering the wings on my Avid Marki 4 STOL. I want to buy a spray outfit and am considering a HVLP. I found a Fuji online for around $550.00. I would like some imput. Is hvlp good or do you all like a regular compressor setup more?

Bill in Payson AZ

[EDMO 1078]

Hello All

I am just finishing recovering the wings on my Avid Marki 4 STOL. I want to buy a spray outfit and am considering a HVLP. I found a Fuji online for around $550.00. I would like some imput. Is hvlp good or do you all like a regular compressor setup more?

Bill in Payson AZ

Bill,

I prefer a big air compressor, which you can use for many things. We had a Binks (high dollar) HVLP gun borrowed, and also a cheap - $12 - Harbor Freight HVLP gun. We tried both guns, and the cheap one did just as good as the Binks. Both had the cup on the top - gravity feed. Got a beautiful job on a J3.

Oh yes, we were using the Stewart system this time, but have tried this with dope - same results - Just got to get the pressure and mix adjusted correctly - use a small pressure regulator attached to the gun, and set it with the trigger pulled - Yes, HVLP is better than the old way - but you can do it fine with a compressor and HVLP gun.

waste some paint on a small part, like a rudder until you are satisfied with your settup. If you dont have a rudder to do - grab some boards and glue some fabric and shrink it and test drive that.

Hope this helps.

ED in MO

Edited 14 Oct 2012 by Ed In Missouri

[C5Engineer 1170]

I painted my fuse and tail feathers with a Harbor Freight HPLV gun. Took a little bit to get it dialed in on a piece of cardboard but after that it was cake.

[akflyerbob 41]

Same here, I also used the harbor frt spray guns on my mod 1 (white)

and the mod 3 (yellow) w/poly paints.

They did just fine afer a little setup.

I'm not sure I would use them with any urethane paint

all thou I confess I'm not a painter

[akflyer 1427]

I used a borrowed HVLP turbine set up when I did mine. I had to use an extra length of hose so the air temp was not so high that the paint was drying before it flowed onto the surface. That said, I loved the gun and it gave very nice results without any monkeying around. When I shot the epoxy out of it, I had to play with the needle a little bit bit only wasted a few tea spoons of paint doing so.

So while others have had great luck going the cheap route, I really liked the results of the turbine sprayer. If you dont have a large enough compressor, you will be getting mixed results as the air volume and pressure will be constantly changing.