Tips From The Idaho Painter — airless spraying

Let's talk about feathered edges, that light airy and fluffy edge we all dream about, yeah that one. The one you get with an airless spray gun that is spraying just right.  A nice feathered edge with no tailing.  With a few tips and tricks I am going to teach you how to get the perfect and consistent feathered airless sprayed edge. 

Now the first tip I have to share is patience, this takes time to learn and mess around with before you start understanding your pump and guns PSI levels and what to gauge it at for the perfect finish. It took me many years to understand what PSI I had to be at and what that even meant, with patience and consistency I picked it up and so will you. 

Getting the proper spray pattern is typically related to pressure.  Demonstrated in This Video I will be running multiple pressures with a couple different tips to show you that every tip is different as well as what it looks like with too low of pressure and too high of pressure. I will also be spraying with one product because when switching products the pressure will be different since the consistencies of the product are all unique. I am using a Titan 440 which does not have a digital pressure readout but I do have a Titan HEA gage set up so that I can read what the levels are at. You can use what ever sprayer you have available.  It is essential to know the pressure so having a gauge at your gun is useful to get a feel and understanding of what the PSI should be at.  Once you get dialed in the gauge will not be necessary but in the beginning I highly recommend having one. More expensive sprayers have a digital read out on them showing you what the PSI is at the pump.

I will be starting off using a regular high production tip with 700 PSI and I see fingering immediately. Fingering is caused when there is not enough pressure and it looks as if there is a split in the spray pattern on both sides that didn’t get any product.  Tailing is related to lack of pressure at the run the majority of the time. I’ve bumped it up to 1000 PSI now and the fingering is starting to go away because more pressure is coming from the gun. I bumped it up to 1500 PSI to try and completely eliminate the fingering and it is looking good. Now do not get frustrated because you may have to try this a few times before you are happy with the results and there is a nice feathering on the edges. The edge can have a more pronounced edge or a gradual feather depending on the tip.  Titan HEA tips are designed to give you a more pronounced feather whereas the Titan high production tips are designed for a sharper edge.  

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