We used bigger (I think?) needles for the hvlp spray heads and thinned it with a latex conditioner called Floetrol. Sprayed out good but you could dent it with your fingernail. That's the early stuff. What I've used in the last 10 years dried much harder. Okay, I'm sorry to get off subject and am done reminiscing. Thanks, Cliff.

 

Alright Mark, the pressure is on, I've heard a lot about water based but have never seen the finished product, I'll be very interested to see how it works out for you.

Geez.... now I'm sweating!

 

I have the 3M filter cups for my Iwata hvlp gun that are 125 microns. I will be using a 1.3 head for the gun. I used the same gun for the sealer coat and it sprayed beautiful.

 

Which model Iwata do you have. that tip is smaller than just about anything I use, fascinating...

Some product shots...

And the Iwata HTE-2 (corrected tip size is 1.3)

 

4 hours ago, wheee! said:

I am confident that my lack of experience and knowledge will allow my ignorance to protect me...

Words to live by!

from experience, 95% of the outcome is in the prep work.

from experience, 95% of the outcome is in the prep work.

And with that, I admit a fail this evening. I prepped the panel with 600 grit, cleaned it, cleaned the gun (twice) and then decided to save a little money and not use a filter cartridge with the first paint colour. Big mistake. Blew chunks onto the panel halfway thru. Not really bad, just enough to teach me a lesson. Also had the air too high and the fan too wide. Water based sprays differently than epoxy... live and learn.

Pics as promised!


First pass -

Second after flashing -

Third with fan coat -


And one with the fluorescents turned off -


No more till I finish the rest of the colours and again after the clearcoat etc.

Is that trash or splatter?  Hard to tell but It gets better looking so I'll go with splatter.  I like the color. 

Splatter. Too much pressure and flow in the gun plus unfiltered paint (regular cup, not a 3M 125 micron cup). The finished dried panel look better but not great. I was going for colour and coverage rather than quality here. I also anticipated having to dial in the gun as I went so the following panels should get better! I didn't have enough paint to spray a lot of test patterns for the gun. Paint ain't cheap!

2 minutes ago, wheee! said:

Splatter. Too much pressure and flow in the gun plus unfiltered paint (regular cup, not a 3M 125 micron cup). The finished dried panel look better but not great. I was going for colour and coverage rather than quality here. I also anticipated having to dial in the gun as I went so the following panels should get better! I didn't have enough paint to spray a lot of test patterns for the gun. Paint ain't cheap!

I'm surprised you got that much spatter.  Do you have an air dryer to take care of moisture?