spray painting

[Sum]

When you spray paint a piece of wood board, do you spray horizontally,
starting from the top work towards the bottom or from bottom up?

I think I used too much and I ended up with "tear drops". I cannot lay
the board flat because the can has to be "upright". So I tried to sand
off the tear dops and cover with a new coat and I see the ridges of the
tear drops. May be I need to sand off the whole thing.

Suggestions?

Thanks,

Sum

[Dan Hicks]

Spray technique is an art. The most important thing to understand is
that you shouldn't simply hold the trigger in and move the sprayer back
and forth across the work. That techinque leads to poor control and
puddling. Rather, you move the sprayer across the work, get the sprayer
moving, then press the trigger, keep moving at a constant speed, then
release the trigger at the end of the stroke before stopping the sweep.
This gives you a uniform coat.

Details such as corners (especially inside corners), edges, molding,
etc, should be painted first. Then paint the larger body of the
surface. If you paint the body of the surface first, the overspray from
painting the details will build up on the body and produce runs.

When spraying a narrow vertical surface, start from the top and work
down, since mist from the spray area will fall downward and you don't
want the mist settling on the newly-painted surface and causing it to
develop a spotted appearance.

[davefr]

Did you start with a primer/sealer coat??

When you spray paint, you want to apply 1 very light coat and let it
flash off for about 10-15 minutes. After that you can apply 1-2 full
wet coats. (flashing off let's the solvent evaporate and makes the
first coat able the absorb the second coat without runs)

Most paint runs come from one heavy coat vs. a light coat followed by
a couple full wet coats with some flash off time in between.