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Painting can be as easy or as hard.. or as cheap or expensive as you want it to be. I started painting my tractors using a 4gallon, 2hp pancake compressor from the chinese store for 89$, with a old 15$ 15 gallon campbel hausfeld air up tank plumbed in to give extra storage capacity. Add to that a 20$ chinese regulator, and a 2$ filter ( disposable ) a couple 10$ air lines, and a 15$ chinese syphon gun that was marked down to 9$ ( binks knockoff ). IE.. my sum total in equipment was about 155$.. ( and i had the compressor and air tank just for doing tires anyway.. ). I figured I may be horrible at painting so wanted to try it out on the cheap. I started with BPS ( TSC ) alkyd enamil paints. For sure they are the economy paints.. don't produce the super nice finish like a 'car' paint.. and they don't last as long.. however.. instead of costing 150$ a gallon, plus needing about 40$ of addatives.. they only cost about 25$ a gallon, and need at most.. 10$/gallon in addatives. IE.. 55$ will get you a small tractor painted.. depending on single or dual color, and that includes the metal primer. My first spraygun job was my 2n.. turned out great. i used an old piece of scrap metal as test piece to get my guns air and pattern setup correct. The alkyd was a good choice to learn on.. it is very forgiving and more or less goes on easy. My first paintjob was a complete success. ( still looks good today.. no fading. though i have waxed it and do keep all my tractors under some kind of shade... ).. sun exposure will fade alkyd enamil much faster than the more expensive acrylics and 'thane' style paints.. etc. If you get good and like it.. then invest in more equipment and better paint if you want. My tractors ( all but 1 ) are workers.. so the 25$ gallon paint is fine for me. By the time they get faded.. the paint will likely be scratched off anyway.. Hit the paint and BW board. Lots of good painters there with good advice on the 'good stuff'. I'm sure it bugs them that there are hack hobby painters like me that use 25$ pant in 15$ guns.. but it don't bother me none!.. ( My mom got me a 'real' compressor a few years back.... 5hp/80 gallon.. with built in regulator.. much nicer! I added a new gun ( 20$ ) and relegated the 9$ gun to be a primer only gun. I also added a touch-up gun with a 6oz cup for when shooting small hanging parts and yuo don't want to mix up a half quart of paint and addatives to make a 3 minute shoot.. Soundguy
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