Day: August 6, 2011

No, I’m not off to wreak mayhem and start a brawl with a rival gang (for those who like to plumb the depths of East London slang). In fact I popped down to Toolstation this morning and bought myself a spray gun to use with my new compressor, so now I’m all prepared to get going on spraying the pod. I actually went into Screwfix who had a spray gun I fancied in their catalogue but as before when I went to buy a heat gun, they didn’t have it in stock. So on two recent occasions Toolstation have got my business instead, for both the heat gun and the spray gun, and Screwfix have missed out.

And both times I’ve ended up buying modestly priced items from Silverline and both times I’ve turned out very surprised by just how good they are, let alone for what they have cost! For example, the spray gun cost only £17.72 including VAT and having tried it out, it seems to do everything I need it to. The Screwfix one I wanted was a bit more expensive but I’m very happy with the one I ended up buying, for less money. After all, I’m not exactly a professional sprayer and the results I’ll get from a £20 gun will probably be no worse than if I paid £100 for one 😕

Here’s a shot of it.

As you can see, it’s what is termed a gravity-fed model which has its paint pot mounted above the body of the gun. I mentioned previously that I already had a spray gun in my garage but that’s the old suction type with the pot below the body of the gun. I’ve found out that the gravity fed guns are much better for what I want to do. They are referred to as HVLP guns – high volume, low pressure – and as you might expect, they work at lower pressures than the suction type, some (but not mine) at very low pressures indeed, actually. And because of this, you get much less ‘bounce back’ from the item you’re spraying resulting in less paint mist floating in the air and more staying on the item. The difference is of the order of 2 times as I recall (2/3 of the sprayed paint from the HVLP gun ends up on the sprayed item compared to only 1/3 for a conventional gun), so the saving in paint can be quite considerable on a big job!

My new gun matches the output of my compressor very nicely and when I first looked, I was concerned that the connector it came with didn’t match the air line on my compressor. It was only when I switched over the connector from the tyre inflator that came with my compressor and went to pop the spray gun’s original connector back in its box that I realised that another, correct connector was in there already and had come with the gun! So I was doubly pleased. So the next time I use it will be ‘in anger’ (but not literally I hope) when I come to spray the pod. I’m looking forward to it 😉

Just came back to add a quick PS. Looks like the more expensive Screwfix spray gun is (wait for it….) also the Silverline, or is the same as, anyway. So I saved myself a few pounds there. Makes a nice change 😀 Mind you, that’s as far as my luck goes today. Today has been duller and cooler than recently with a little more wind, so not the best day for me to either start spraying the pod or attempt the panel repair which is something I have to do before I can start the repair work proper on MYRO. So I thought in that case, best to spend the time rubbing the outside of the pod down ready for spraying (the interior is finished, of course) and then get it masked up so when there is a suitable weather window, I can get onto the spraying straight away. Well, I got the rubbing down done OK and – yes, you’ve guessed – it’s now raining.

Thinking of last August when I lost over a fortnight through the weather waiting to ferry MYRO across for its check flight, I just hope that this won’t be deja-vu all over again, Rodney 🙁