Electric Paint Spraying Pt1

After a bit of research I recently decided to buy an electric paint sprayer.  Reviews seemed mixed, but the Bosch item I had selected claimed to be able to do car paint.  It was an ideal tool, that if it worked well would tick all the boxes.  With me working on the bus outside it would mean I could paint when I needed to, and with little overspray it meant it was ideal for use in the barn too.

After a trip to my paint suppliers I came home with everything I need.  I just need to run a test on the body colour to confirm its going to work with the interior.  The test patch will be L90D - VW pastel white.  Looking at the swatches, it should work perfectly!

And so last night I decided to give the gun a test.  It also meant I could make in-roads to testing the colour, which I need to make sure is what we want (as I have a 0.5 litre tester, and need to buy 5 litres if its correct).

First I gave the panel a really quick rub down and basic prep.  The panel is far from ready to be used, so this is simply to test out the gun and colour.

 
Obviously first though, I needed to get some primer laid down.  It comes as a kit, the mix being 4:1 with 10-30% thinners.  I only added 10%, as due to temperatures still being quite low I wanted to reduce the chance of the paint running straight off the panel.

Initially the spray was splattering horribly.  Where the paint hit it was thick, but it was giving massively uneven coverage.  There is a dial by the trigger to adjust the flow that comes through the nozzle, and I quickly started turning it down searching for a finer spray.  But before the time I hit its lowest setting I was already thinking I needed more thinnners in my paint.  These photo's show how bad it was!

 

 

I dropped some more thinners into the mix and things were noticably better ... but still far acceptable.  With time ticking, and a clean-up still in front of me, I opted to just get some paint on the panel and come back to it another day when I can rub the primer flat and hit it with some top coat ... this time starting off with 30% thinners!