Debate: Did I waste $400 on that expensive paint gun or was it worth it?

I dropped $400 on a higher end HVLP gun for a big job last week thinking it would cut down on my orange peel. But my old $80 harbor freight gun was actually laying down the paint just as smooth after I dialed in my air pressure. Has anyone else gone high end on a tool and regretted it or am I just not using it right?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnson.lee9h ago

Yeah you mentioned "dialed in my air pressure" with the cheap gun - that's actually the key thing nobody's talking about. The expensive guns are supposed to be more forgiving out of the box but if you know how to tune a cheap one it's basically the same result.

finley9398h ago

The first time I tried dialing in pressure on a $40 gun from Harbor Freight I spent like 3 hours just spraying cardboard lol. But once I got it right it laid down primer just as flat as my buddy's $600 Iwata on his kitchen cabinets. So my question is what specific pressure range are you running for that cheap gun? Because I've seen people say 25-30 PSI for detail work but mine seems to spit at anything under 35.