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I take it the seller is not the manufacturer and has inserted his own instructions for cleaning? The method you mention that includes loosening the air cap is called "percolating the gun". It is applicable to gravity feed guns only, as far as I know. I don't know if Sharpe recommends that procedure. My guns are all DeVilbiss and Devilbiss doesn't mention it at all in any of their literature, even the modern stuff. I suspect it is not mentioned by the manufacturer because of a potential safety issue when doing it. You need to loosen the air cap a couple of turns such that it is quite loose on the body. You need to reduce the air pressure to less than 5 psig beforehand and with some solvent in the cup, pull the trigger for a while. Use fresh solvent and repeat. Do not hold your face over the cup and peer into it when doing this. There will be some rather violent agitation and bubbling going on in the cup and if your pressure is too high, it is very possible that you will get splashed in the eyes with solvent - not good at all. It does work fairly well however. I use the percolating procedure on my gravity spot gun in between product changes - e.g. between primer and surfacer or between color and clear. I do not rely on it completely however. When I am through painting for the day, I will disassemble the gun and do a thorough cleaning with a cleaning brush(s) and compressed air. I remove the air cap, the fluid tip, the needle and the cup. The cap and tip gets soaked in clean solvent, the needle wiped clean, and the cup and cover cleaned individually with solvent and paper towels. The cap and tip gets wiped clean and compressed air blown through all openings. The body passages get the brush treatment using solvent. The gun is then reassembled and put away until next time. I wouldn't worry about harming any threads unless they are plastic or you tend to over-wrench everything. Seals can be reused in many instances, despite manufacturer recommendations. My spot gun has a plastic (nylon?) gasket between the fluid tip and the body. I have some spares but have never used any of them, even though DeVilbiss recommends replacing it after every tip removal. I've just reused the same one over and over at least 20 times so far without a problem. You gun may be totally different so I would follow Sharp's recommendations together with your own good judgment. Rod
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Rod