Airless Spray
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An airless sprayer simplifies painting in two ways: First, if you want to speed up a job that requires several gallons of paint, you can apply it twice as fast as with a roller or brush. And second, if you want a glass-smooth finish on woodwork or doors, the airless sprayer can lay the paint on flawlessly.

An airless sprayer works by pumping paint at a very high pressure, up to 3,000 psi, through a hose and out a tiny hole in the spray gun tip. The tip is designed to break up the paint evenly into a fan-shaped spray pattern of tiny droplets. Using different tips, you can spray thin liquids like stain, lacquer and varnish or thicker liquids like latex house paint. With a little practice, you can use an airless sprayer to apply a perfectly smooth finish on doors, cabinets and woodwork. And since an airless sprayer pumps paint directly from a can or 5-gallon bucket, you can apply a lot of material in a short time. This makes an airless sprayer particularly well suited for large paint jobs, like priming bare drywall in a new house or painting a 300-ft.-long privacy fence.

But before you get too excited about the benefits of spray painting, there are a few drawbacks to consider. First, the fine particles of paint don’t all stick to the surface. A large percentage of the paint ends up in the air, where it can drift and settle onto everything in sight. This means you’ll be wasting 20 to 40 percent of the finish, depending on the application. You’ll also have to take extra time to mask off and cover up everything you want to keep paint free. Outdoor painting is especially risky. Overspray can end up on your shrubs or roof, or drift with the wind onto your neighbor’s car.

The other downside is the extra time it takes to flush the paint from the pump and hose and clean up the spray gun. If you’re using your own sprayer, rather than a rental unit, you’ll also have to clean the filters and install special storage fluid. And if you’re spraying oil-based products, you’ll have to store or recycle a gallon or two of used solvents left over from the cleaning process. But despite these disadvantages, an airless can save you a lot of time on big paint jobs and allow you to get a finish that’s nearly impossible to get with a brush.