Paint Gun Setup...

My next few tractors I painted with a very inexpensive setup.. an 80$ pancake compressor, a 15 gallon air tank, and a 14$ paint gun marked down to 9$ at the chinese store ( siphon type.. non hvlp ). I also used a 19$ air regulator and filter.. though a 9$ air reg by CH is available as well as 4$ disposable paint filters for hooking on the air line right at the gun. Takes a bit of patience for air to come up.. but is ok. I finally 'upgraded' to a 27gallon air comp with a built in air reg... still use the 9$ gun.

The cheap gun is 'fine' for tractor painting.. just clean it well.. IE, add thinner to bowl, wipe clean.. add more thinner.. spray till mist is clear on a paper towel, wipe outside of bowl till clean, and wip nozzle down with thinner to keep air and needle clean... and that goes for any gun.. a 10$ one or a 150$ one.. clean is the only way to go. Sure.. you use about .5-1 qt thinner / naptha.. but it is worth it.

Also.. metal prep work is worth 4x as much to the outcome of the tractors finish look than the amount of $$ you spend on the paint supplies, and home much $$ you have in paint equipment ( compressor / guns ).

Soundguy

No, you do not "really neeed" a HVLP gun - unless you are in a geographic area that may require them by law. They are the predominant type of gun most everywhere now however, so I would consider going with that style anyway. More so since you are just starting out and will not have to learn a slightly different application technique. Besides, I am told that HVLP guns are easier for beginners to use. Gravity feed types are the most common nowadays and are the easiest to clean, in my opinion. I'll link you to a good booklet on paint guns published by DeVilbiss. It's pretty generic and is generally applicable to similar guns from different manufacturers. It's a 1.4MB pdf file so if you are on dialup, you may want to save it to your hard drive and read it from there. Do that anyway so you can easily refer back to it. Here's the link. In case the link doesn't work, copy and paste the following URL into your browser:

http://www.devilbiss.com/pdf/sales/I-239%20-%20ABC%20OF%20SPRAY%20FINISHING.PDF

Rod