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Spray Equipment

Just as there is a myriad of paint choices available when deciding to finish your model, the market also offers many different choices to the modeler when choosing spray equipment. I think it would be helpful to understand the basic differences in spray guns types and which ones are the best choices for the modeler.
 

Spray Guns

The spray gun I think most people are familiar with is the full-size production gun. Ironically this is probably the least useful tool for our purposes since it is designed to cover very large areas and lay down large amounts of material in a single pass. This is great if you plan on painting a Buick, not so wonderful for a model airplane.
 
 
 
 
We require a gun that is in between the full size and an airbrush. A gun this size is the most efficient for our purposes because it doesn't require you to mix large amounts of paint to work properly which means you won't be wasting material. These two photos also show the two of the most popular designs in spray guns, siphon and gravity feed.
 
 
 
 
Most large guns are siphon feeds simply because it's awkward to balance and support a quart of paint if it's centered above your wrist. Most of the touch up professional quality guns are gravity fed. While there may be some technical merits to this design the biggest advantage I find is how easy they are to clean compared to the siphon feeds.
 

HVLP Guns

I should mention that a bit of a revolution has occurred in the last five years regarding spray gun design. For years the typical siphon feed gun used high pressure compressed air to atomize the paint and apply it to the surface. While the end result of spray painting anything is to apply the material to a surface, the new guns use a technology called High Volume Low Pressure or HVLP to get the job done.

The motivation for this change was primarily to meet strict standards that the EPA imposed regarding overspray and paint emissions. Anyone who has used the old style, high pressure guns knows what a fog of overspray mist is created when painting even the smallest objects. The HVLP guns reduce these emissions dramatically.

They still use the same pressure into the gun (30 - 50psi) but the pressure at the tip of the gun is reduced to 10 - 15psi which stops the huge overspray fog that the old guns emit. The side benefit to these reduced emissions is how efficiently the guns apply paint to the surface. Where the old style guns shot 2/3rds of the paint into the atmosphere in the form of overspray, the HVLP guns stick this paint to the surface you are spraying, the net result is far less paint used for a given area painted.

The paint saving is quite dramatic and takes a while to get used to if you are used to working with the old style guns. With my own equipment it took quite some time for me to stop mixing up the big batches of paint I did before switching to an HVLP gun.
 

Airbrush

The third style of gun we would commonly use is called an airbrush. These tiny little creations apply miniscule amounts of paint in a very controlled fashion. They are commonly used for graphics art work where precise control is required and you aren't looking to cover a large area with paint. These guns, surprisingly, don't get much work for the types of painting we do. Unless you are laying down fancy graphics and intricate designs, our purposes are better served with the touch up gun.
 
 
 
 

Touchup Gun

There are many manufacturers of spray equipment and like everything else, it's a matter of getting what you pay for. The inexpensive Taiwanese copies that now dominate the market are decent for occasional use or primer but if you want consistent quality and something that will last for years expect to pay about $300.00 for a good HVLP touch up gun.

My personal gun is made by SATA, a German manufacturer that produces equipment for the autobody industry. It's easy to clean, uses paint at 1/2 the rate of a conventional gun and produces excellent results. Binks, Devillbiss and Badger are some of the other manufacturers that produce fine products.

 
 
 
 
Once you have chosen the spray equipment you will require some compressed air to begin using it. For years I've used a tiny 3/4 horse compressor with a 5 gallon tank that has performed flawlessly. Unless you plan on driving air tools or a full size production gun the small compressors are fine. Plan on spending about another $300.00 for one.
 

Accessories

The only accessories I would recommend are some quick disconnect couplers to make hook up and disconnecting from your gun easier. I would also recommend an inline water trap to make sure none of that pesky water finds it's way onto your pristine paint job (compressed air contains an alarming amount of moisture, especially around here!)

That covers the requirements for the tools required to produce a good paint job. Next -- How to mask like a Pro.