Painting and Airbrushing guitars

allmostawake

New member
In the past I subbed out the painting of the guitars I build. I've decided to the work myself now that I have more time and the space to do it. I need a recommendation for 1) a spray gun for shooting base coats and clear coats (both water based) 2) An Airbrush to spray some detail work 3) A compressor that will power both Gun and Airbrush. AND!!! It's got to be affordable. I don't want anything that's going to break right away but I also don't want to buy top of the line gear as I'm not going to be doing this but once or twice a month. So I want affordable and best bang for the buck. Small and quiet is a consideration as well. Thanks, Ray
 

scapegoat

New member
I would stop in your local body shops and talk to the techs . Find out what is availible in your area , what works well for the $$$ . You can also stop in the local paint jobber and ask away also . Take notes and compare . After you made a decision , check out EBAY and compare apples to apples for pricing . Harbor Freight might be a place to go also . I haven't been there in a few years , so I don't know what they have . Good Luck and welcome !
 

Wydir

New member
for small jobs like that a small gun like a SATA Minijet 4 (any minijet will work) would be a perfect canidate for this and for an air brush a Iwata HP-CS Eclipse these will run about 150.00 for a used minijet and 125.00 for a brand new Iwata
check ebay for used touchup guns. Iwata has small guns also called LPH50 or a LPH80(these are hard to find used so will be more expensive). I use all SATA guns they are waterbourn ready

you say you dont want to buy good guns but you mess up one job and you waste $75.00 in paint. You will wish you spent more on a better gun then.

as for a compressor you could go down to the nearset home depot and buy a small wheeled husky unit 2-3hp for small stuff like that. remember you will need some airline(not rubber hose) to hook your air filters to then from the filters you can have a Rubber hose to you gun. I am leaving alot out of this you will have around 400-1000 into just being able to spray paint as long as you know its not going to be cheap to start painting it wont be bad but dont expect to be all setup for $200.00

and since its all waterbourn paint it has to be extremely dry air not the same as spraying solvent and you will need a fan or air blower(can be a handheld unit run from your compressed air line, these are air hogs so I recommend a fan of some sort) could even be a hair dryer.
 
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