[STATUTORY GRAPE]

I recently painted two fenders for my work truck and was wondering if anyone could tell me if I may have had the gun spraying too heavy? The fenders are both quite large measuring 18' long by 2 1/2' wide (they cover 4 sets of axles). I shot them with an ATD gravity feed gun (not HVLP) and some PPG acrylic enamel. I gave them one heavy coat (painting ONLY one side of each fender) covering everything, it flowed very well and laid out great with absolutely no runs and hardly any orange peel (I'm very satisfied). However,, it took approx. 1 1/2 quarts to paint them and there was quite a bit of overspray in the air. Does this sound like to much paint or is this amount normal for something with that surface area? Should I be setting the fluid control down some? I had the air pressure set at 50 lbs. at the inlet (tech sheet specs). My fan should be approx. 12" correct? Any and all replies or constructive criticism welcomed

[willys36@aol.com]

Actually, old fashioned high pressure guns tended to consume a lot of paint. Quart and a half is probably right for big fenders like that. With paint prices sky-rocketing past $100 heading toward $200/gal, the saving in paint on one car would buy you a very nice HVLP gun.

[julmer]

A single, heavy coat is not the recommended way to spray. From the size description, I'll guess they are on some kind of heavy hauler and mostly flat so you were a bit lucky. If there was much vertical, you would likely have run city. The choice is usually a medium coat followed by 2 wet coats and allow the paint to flash between each coat.
I'll second the idea of an HVLP gun. You can get a Harbor Freight for around $50 or a Sharpe Finex for $75 or $80. You will save the cost of the gun in just a couple of moderate paint jobs because they put so much more of that expensive paint on the surface.

[STATUTORY GRAPE]

Actually, I sprayed a light tack coat first, then the one heavy coat. You're right though, they are mostly flat. Thats the ONLY reason I was able to do that. KIDS,,,DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!! LOL. My company doesn't want to spend much on paint so that was the most inexpensive way of painting them. If I was to give them three heavy coats it would have taken over a gallon of paint so that was my only option. I'll bet nobody would ever guess it's only one coat as well as it layed out If they WERE vertical I wouldn't even attempt it