choice on a hvlp spray gun

[260zturbo]

here is my reasoning on a gun. i recently moved out finally to start school again. i gave college a 2 year shot and that was not my thing. so i just started a tech college and im loving it. im getting certfied in collision repair. while in school i started a new job at a collision repair shop. im a bascially a apprentice to a painter at the shop. im having a blast doing this stuff. can be a little dirty and tireing but well worth it. im looking at getting a gun to do the z and a couple other things in the future. at work they have sata 3000 the HIGH dollar guns. BIG difference then crap guns they have at school. i was looking on ebay and they have a digital output read on the sata 3000? is that any better then the reg sata 3000? just wondering bc they have them for 400-500. also considering just finding a good gun in the lower price range but dont want a cheapo gun. just wondering what HVLP guns yall use and guns to look for?

[MusPuppis]

I'm a collision repair student myself.

 

Sata makes a good gun, but poke around for an Iwata LPH400LV. They pop up on ebay, used for a reasonable price fairly often, I paid 335$ or so for mine, very very lightly used and it is simply a dream. We have a Sata 3000 with the digital read at school and I think the Iwata is superior on every way. Its an LVLP also, not HVLP which means it runs at next to no pressure and requires less over-all CFM (mine is rated at like 9CFM) so using smaller compressors wont result in poor gun performance.

 

Now, you could also look into the DeVilbiss GTI Millinium, with some research (spraygundepo.com) you can find it for sub 300$ and it comes with a 1.7, 1.4 and 1.3 tip, very good all-around gun, outputs alot of material, similar to the sata and has a BIG ass pattern when its wide open, designed around production and speed, its a solid gun for the money and top class.

 

if you intend to do work at home or on the side and wont be in a well outfitted shop, keep the gun CFM requirement in mind, the GTI and Sata are HOGS. They take a sturdy compressor to run correctly.

 

http://www.spraygunworld.com/products/DeVilbiss/DeVilbiss%20DEVGTI620G.htm

 

That website has pretty damn good prices, VERY tough to beat them outside of used equipment or lucky ebay finds.

 

Now, for a good gun on the cheap, the Finishline series by Devilbiss comes well recommended. I'll be honest, I havent personally sprayed with one myself but I know a few poeple that have had great results with them and love the hell out of them.

 

Oh, its my understanding that the Sata with the digital read is nothing different, it just has a very accurate, built in regulator. Nice, but if you have one of the large air dryer/regulators on the wall of the booth, it tends to be alot better to simply turn the pressure down at that and forgo a regulator on the gun itself. Most gun regs restrict flow to lesser and greater degrees and hurt the volume of air, which is important for the gun to spray its best, regulating at the wall with those big bastards is a good way to keep CFM up and limit restriction.

[award280]

LVLP? This is new to me. Quick!! To the search engines!!

 

Any personal expierience with these?

[Two40MuscleZ]

Sata is pricey but it is the Caddy of spray guns. It has always been the industry standard. Many of the professional painters sware by the Sata. But, contact the various manufacturers ask for product sheets and then compare for yourself. Got to the larger auto body shops or custom paint shops in your area and ask the painters themselves for the pros and cons of the guns they are using and what their opinions are about the various guns. Perhaps they might even put some solvent in the gun and let you run a test pattern. Its worth a try. But for my money, I like the Sata. Both RacerX (Ernie) and I have shot our share of customs over the last 30 some years. Ernie will agree with me that Sata is a hard one to beat. It's the best I've found and I have several. Iwata and DV are also good, but spray pattern is not as fine as the Sata. Good luck...

[CANDYBLUE2+2]

SATA is by far the best. I still apply BC with my 95 series gun and I have a 92 series gun that some would "KILL FOR" but I'm not tellin where that is. I also spray with the IWATA LPH400, (ClearCoat Only). The SATA can' t touch it for performance and the abilty to lay down just about any brand of CC on the market. It's also about 150/200 bucks cheaper then SATA. So it's worth looking into. The IWATA Co. is also known to produce some ass kickin airbrushes as well.