spraying laytex paint

What can I get to spray heavy laytex in small amounts? Sherwin Williams sold me industrial metal latex paint that works pretty well, I just painted a 20 x 44 ft steel building with it. Is there a resonable gun I can get for my air commpressor?

Thanks. I know this is slightly off topic but the smartest people I know are on these forums and I will get a good answer.

Randy in SW PA

I have a grayco airless as well that works great for large jobs, but as Rod says takes alot of time for cleanup.I have used the small Wagner Cup sprayers for spraying the inside of cabinets and the like. I even sprayed some doors with Varathane and it worked reasonably well. I found having it properly adjusted and not trying to put too much on at once was the key to success.

When you speak of small jobs, what do you mean. As an idea, perhaps if the job is small enough the rattle can paints would be the best choice?

Whenever I spray latex I use Sherwin Williams Duration acrylic latex, applied with Graco high pressure airless spray equipment. I wouldn't attempt it with any air-atomized gun that I use for automotive paints. I know that would fail miserably. Yes, the Graco is best for large jobs and I find it a pain to clean, even when using only latex - it takes me at least an hour to clean up the equipment afterwards. For small Latex jobs, I really don't have a spray recommendation. I use brush or roller application for those. If outside, I have to be in the shade on a cool day though since the Duration can dry so fast that it's difficult to keep a wet edge with either a brush or a roller. Inside generally isn't a problem keeping a wet edge as long as you keep at it.

Sherwin Williams doesn't recommend anything other than brush, roller or 2000 psi airless spray - at least for their Duration product. Perhaps other Latex products are a little bit thinner than Duration so you might want to check the SW website for a tech data sheet on the exact product you are using.

I've never used one of the small, portable Wagner units. I started to look into them once for some interior wall work but decided against that in favor of brush and roller. I think you are going to have a hard time finding any air-atomized equipment that would be a suitable substitute for high pressure airless.

Check the manufacturer's instructions regarding thinning. The Duration I use is not to be thinned. However, if you can thin the latex you use down into the 20-24 second area using a #2 Zahn viscosity cup, you could then apply that with conventional automotive-type air-atomized spray equipment. I don't know if you can or should do that with any latex paint but that would be one solution if you could get away with it.

Rod

Small to me is like I had to paint a steel door for instance. I had just enough industrial latex left for a door I had to paint. At 40 bucks a gallon I did not want to buy another gallon so I could paint the door with my graco. I bought a wagner thinking it was like a small graco. I was wrong. Very wrong. I ended up screwing up the door and had to go over it with a brush and now it looks like total crap. The other steel doors I painted with thew graco look great.