Hey guys just wondering whats the go with air compressors to use for spray painting? I had a bit of trouble using my friends compressor last weekend when I was spraying primer on my ute. Thinking that its not powerful enough for the gun as it didn't kick off the entire day I was spraying and the gun kept spraying intermittently. Any tips would be appreciated before I go rent a bigger compressor. Cheers.

yep by the sounds of that it was too small, probably needs a re-ring now after running all day
Generally those really small bargain ones from total tools or supercheap arnt big enough, and can cause major troubles when actually laying the colour down.

Im not 100% sure what hp compressor to get, but make sure it has a water trap in it! its also a good idea to get an inline water filter for the hose.

What Wardy said plus you need something that will hold around 32-35 PSI. Those little things are actually o.k just for doing prep work like priming a door and a guard here and there. Go hire the Compressor for a day and make sure you mix paints/primers to the right ratios and clean out your gun thoroughly.

About 60psi is what was recomended for the laquer I used, but you need a compresser with a tank big enough that will keep up that 60psi with constant spraying.
Also try cleaning out your spray gun if you have intermitant spray.

Whats the paint job going to be, are you doing bonett patches, two tone paint job?

You must put some pics up

Wow you would have had to turn the gun right down there either that or theres more lacquer round the place on the walls than on the car. No offence but 60PSI is over kill mate i have sprayed cars with a beaver spray gun there around 25-28 PSI and the last one was metallic with pearl with a cut with 1200 paper and a buff it came up like a mirror no orange peel. Yes you can go 60 PSI but be prepared to waste some paints and cop a lot of overspray if your not using a booth or turn your gun down low if it has any adjustments. would say personally 40PSI at the max.

It also depends Andy on what spray gun you have to there are cheep hi pressure guns for like 50bucks that need big air flow, I bought a middle range top feed low pressure gun that I find is much better than the cheap stuff and is alot eaiser to feed with air, I have a 2.5hp 60ltr compressor (I think been a while since I seen it) and that worked fine with my $150 dollar gun

but as wardy said the super cheap ones are no good, also how much are you thinning the paint down to??

A cheapy compressor can do 60 PSI. But may not pump enough air volume to keep up.

Traditional spray guns needs a 3.5 CFM compressor. But like Nick says, it depends on your gun.

do yourself a BIG favour and buy a decent High Volume Low Pressure (HVLP) gun and talk to the guy that is supplying your paint about what nozzle size is suitable for your particular paint

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That's is something like that my gun is very close to this, u need to find out how much u need to thin down paint too for good even flow and depending on what your spraying you need differant prep work, the first car I sprayed in 16 hurs that was prep, mask and spray and it was bad, you could have used a guard to sand the rest of the car, lol but after time I became good enought to please, all I can say is have a play b4 u go spraying the real thing just to make sure the gun is setup good and you get even flow

Thanks for the responses everyone. The 2 pak compatible primer I bought is mixed at a 2:1 ratio (2 parts primer, 1 part thinner) which I was mixing a little on the thin side to get better flow out of the gun with that compressor. Currently there is 1 1/2 coats on the ute since I was having troubles.

Haven't sprayed any of the 2 pak top coat yet but the can says is a 10:1 hardener ratio and mix with 40-60% thinner.

Looking to get a 6 CFM rental compressor, as most of the rental places have that as a minimum for around 50-80 dollars a day.

Do you guys get all your priming and painting done in one day?