Ok, so I have been giving a lot of thought to painting my car myself to try to save some cash. I would be shooting a single stage urethane to save time, money and make it a little easier to sand out flaws.

Now here's the thing. I dont have a gun or a compressor. My father has a smaller compressor for running nail guns, but the cfm is no where near what the cfm's are listed on all the HVLP guns I see. Is that totally out of the question to run this compressor? Is it going to be better for me to just rent a larger one? I dont have a place to store a larger one if I bought it, nor do I have the spare funds to buy it anyhow.

 

I just started painting my car and didn't have the space or the money to buy a large air compressor - but I still want a professional looking paint job. (No cheap rattle cans for me!) I found a good HVLP gun on Eastwood - doesn't consume a lot of CFM...just 4 CFM @ 29 psi. Has worked great so far and have had no troubles with it. I would make sure that you use good air filters - water in the line is your enemy.

My setup is:
DEWALT 1.6-HP 4.5-Gallon 200-PSI Electric Air Compressor $350
Eastwood Concours HVLP Paint Spray Gun w/1.2 Tip $160
Fine Air Filter -McMaster Carr #9841K91 $125
Disposable In Line Air Filter $7 (Used at the gun inlet)

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

Hmmm, I will have to double check the output on my dads unit. It might be high enough to run that gun. It's a fairly small, compact unit, but I think it's a 4gallon capacity. That was very helpful. Thanks!

 

Ok, so I went over to Dads after work to check out the mini-compressor. It's pretty small, only 3/4hp and 2.1cfm @110psi. I tried to find a formula to increase cfms based on lower pressure, but cant find one. I know the cfms will increase as the pressure decreases, but at what rate? Would this compressor be 4.2cfm @ 50psi? 4.2cfm @25psi?

I know back in the mid 90's, I had a friend who borrowed it to paint his Dodge Challenger. he was using an old siphon feed gun we had and only used it to lay down the primer. he said it took forever because he had to keep waiting for the tanks to refill. But he was running it at full pressure, which was far too much anyway (enough that it blew the metal cup off the gun twice)