I have a small cabinet shop. it's a one man operation for the most
part, which suits me. In the never ending quest for ways to produce
quality stuff quickly, I have gone the direction of spraying finishes.
I consider myself an amateur with the spray gun, even though I'm on my
3rd one ; ^ )
the first two were HF taiwanese units. I bought HF's high end, which
were sata and binks clones respectively. they work fine, are kind of a
pain to clean and didn't last very long- but they were cheap. for
someone who already is proficient with spraying and is going to spray
3 or 4 jobs a year, I'd think they would be a good choice.
for the 3rd gun I purchased a high end unit- the accuspray 19c. it is
a step above either of the previous guns in pattern and
controllability, a couple of steps over them in how much material it
can deliver well, 4 or 5 steps over them in cleanability and 5 times
the price.
there is one thing about the accuspray that really stands out-
support. a couple of times I have had problems with it that I couldn't
figure out. with the HF units this sort of thing left me dead in the
water. with the accuspray gun, a quick call to tech support has
resolved it. in both cases, the solutions were pretty simple
(remember, I'm an amateur), so it might not be an indication of their
effectiveness in the case of a complex failure. I didn't have to sit
on hold, the person who helped me was knowledgeable, courteous, never
made me feel like my problem was stupid amateur stuff (which it was)
and more to the point, the problems were resolved in a matter of
minutes. in both cases, separated by about a year, I spoke with the
same guy, James. I get the feeling that he IS their tech support
department and that furthermore that is only part of his job. i got
the feeling that tech support calls were somewhat unusual.
spray guns are deceptively simple machines. they have about 2 moving
parts. almost all problems are due to incomplete cleaning. it is the
subtle things that set a good one apart- things like stainless steel
channels inside the body of the gun, good engineering of the
atomization jets....
for me it has been a clear case of buying quality being worthwhile.
Bridger
(who had better get his butt out to the shop and finish that spray
job)
I also have a small one-man shop and spray my work about 6 times a year. I
settled on the Graco 4900 (4-stage turbine). With accessories, I dropped
about $1900 into it. Great quality, and good support from Graco; which was
very important since I hadn't sprayed anything before. It wasn't long
before I caught on which lead a professional painter I knew to comment my
work was high quality. I attribute that to the excellent quality of the
system and the availabe support from Graco when I had a problem. One thing
I have found is that most techs for suppliers are more than willing to talk
to you. As one tech I talked to said, "Most professionals are too vain to
call the manufacturer for advice."
Preston
"Bridger" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I have a small cabinet shop. it's a one man operation for the most
> part, which suits me. In the never ending quest for ways to produce
> quality stuff quickly, I have gone the direction of spraying finishes.
> I consider myself an amateur with the spray gun, even though I'm on my
> 3rd one ; ^ )
> the first two were HF taiwanese units. I bought HF's high end, which
> were sata and binks clones respectively. they work fine, are kind of a
> pain to clean and didn't last very long- but they were cheap. for
> someone who already is proficient with spraying and is going to spray
> 3 or 4 jobs a year, I'd think they would be a good choice.
> for the 3rd gun I purchased a high end unit- the accuspray 19c. it is
> a step above either of the previous guns in pattern and
> controllability, a couple of steps over them in how much material it
> can deliver well, 4 or 5 steps over them in cleanability and 5 times
> the price.
> there is one thing about the accuspray that really stands out-
> support. a couple of times I have had problems with it that I couldn't
> figure out. with the HF units this sort of thing left me dead in the
> water. with the accuspray gun, a quick call to tech support has
> resolved it. in both cases, the solutions were pretty simple
> (remember, I'm an amateur), so it might not be an indication of their
> effectiveness in the case of a complex failure. I didn't have to sit
> on hold, the person who helped me was knowledgeable, courteous, never
> made me feel like my problem was stupid amateur stuff (which it was)
> and more to the point, the problems were resolved in a matter of
> minutes. in both cases, separated by about a year, I spoke with the
> same guy, James. I get the feeling that he IS their tech support
> department and that furthermore that is only part of his job. i got
> the feeling that tech support calls were somewhat unusual.
>
> spray guns are deceptively simple machines. they have about 2 moving
> parts. almost all problems are due to incomplete cleaning. it is the
> subtle things that set a good one apart- things like stainless steel
> channels inside the body of the gun, good engineering of the
> atomization jets....
>
> for me it has been a clear case of buying quality being worthwhile.
>
> Bridger
> (who had better get his butt out to the shop and finish that spray
> job)