Spray Painting Tips 2 & 3

[Bill Spikes]

A couple of people emailed me about using airless paint sprayers. These
are the $300 and up quasi-pro things that will pull paint out of a
5 gallon or 1 gallon bucket.

Spray Painting tip #2:

This is for latex paint & oil-based stain. I don't know about oil-based paints.
Requires that the 1" diameter (or so) paint pickup line be clear plastic.

One way of not wasting more than 25 or 50 (!) feet of paint in the spray hose
when it is time to quit and cleanup for the day or a long beer-break:

Set the water bucket with the first rinse water in it next to the paint
bucket.

Point gun into the side of the paint bucket and start spraying.

Pull pickup tube out of paint bucket and without dipping it in, hold it
over the rinse bucket.

Just before the paint in the pickup tube is gone (clear plastic, remember),
stick the pick up tube in the full rinse bucket. This will maintain
the suction of the pump although there is now an air bubble traveling through
the paint hose.

Just as the first splattering of air comes through the gun, while leaving it
on, move it over to the rinse bucket. It'll spit for a few seconds and then the
rinse water will start coming through.

Anyway, with 25' of hose, pickup tube, and pump, it saves at about 1/2 gallon
or more of paint and starts you off with cleaner rinse water.

Spray Painting Tip #3:

Whenever you are not actually spraying paint, that is, picking yourself up
off the ground because there was one more rung on the ladder than you thought,
refilling the paint bucket next to the sprayer, trying to get the rag you
just dropped into the paint bucket out before it sinks, arguing with the
neighbor about the original color of the upwind side of his two-day-old Beemer,
watching your drop cloth blow down the street (yup, missed the Beemer), or
just taking a lunch or beer break, always have a bucket of water near you where
you can just drop the whole paint gun into it. This keeps the paint in the
tip from turning into concrete and making you clean the whole thing before
starting up again.

As the dreadful time draws near, AGAIN, anyone else got any ideas or tips
to make this easier? I can't be the only one out here making mistakes, eh?

Bill
Amateur Homeowner

ssss-SSSSS-sssst! Hmmm, nice Kelly Moore Eggshell White tattoo you have there!