How Long Do airless tips last? Airless Tip Mystery!

this chris idaho painter here on paint live tv today i'm going to be talking about uh airless spray tips how long do these things actually last anyways it's a very good question they don't last forever and they don't actually last very long you should be changing their tips out quite often if you want to know how long these tips last stay tuned for this video [Applause] [Music] all right i'm going to be talking about airless spray tips and and how long these things last and i know airless spray tips on average you're gonna pay anywhere 25 up to 39 for a spray tip and that is quite a bit of money um what's interesting about them is they're expensive and they don't actually last very long and a lot of painters have a tendency to use them a lot longer than recommended or a lot longer than they should be using them and just to you'll get right to it i use an like a fine finish tip this is a tri-tech fine finish tip fine finish tips last 20 gallons maximum before you're really not getting a true fine finish out of it you're not getting the performance out of the tip how long does a production tip i don't have a production tip here but say like a titan production tip bedford tip um across the board they all on average about 60 to 80 gallons is as long as those tips should be used so i know there's guys out there using them for 100 200 300 500 gallons and you know what's the difference and i've sprayed i've been spraying for i don't know 25 years thousands of hours tens of thousands of hours with a spray gun in my hand and what you'll notice if you're not wearing headphones and listening to music and stuff if you're really in tune with a sprayer one thing you're going to notice is right off the bat is when you start to use the spray tip the sound is going to change um eventually when you're spraying you're going to start to feel more fallout the pattern is going to change and i'll just talk a little bit about you know just production tips in general and there's a study one of the major manufacturers of spray tips i did i got a hold of this study and across the board their spray tips um with a lot the other major manufacturers of spray tips i'm going to be talking about a 5 15 tip this is in the study i saw on the 515 tip after 20 gallons the orifice size on a 515 tip was already a 517 tip so initially when you start using these tips they start wearing rapidly but then the wear the curve starts to drop off so they wear really fast you know quickly within the first 20 gallons and then it starts to drop off after that but a 515 tip became a 517 tip just after 20 gallons after 60 gallons the orifice size yo is it was significantly bigger and what actually happens is the pattern begins to change so the pattern is kind of like a nice oval looking pattern the droplet size is nice and even and as the tip begins the wear the orifice size begins to wear what happens is that pattern is having a nice um oval shaped pattern it starts to become a circular pattern and what happens is the atomization process isn't um is effective it isn't as good droplet size is more sporadic larger and smaller droplets intermix and what happens is you start to get a lot more overspray a lot more fallout so when you're spraying especially overhead as the tip begins to wear you start to feel more droplets falling out of the air on you and that is a worn tip size now some of the overspray some of the fallout's going to be related to uh pressure um too high pressure is going to cause some of that kind of stuff but tip wear is one of the major causes of over spray getting on plants getting where you don't want it to go are you enjoying the video so far are you finding it helpful hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell that way you'll get notified every time we come out with more of this free content and now let's get back to the video so the tips themselves in this study you know around 60 to 80 gallons is when you should begin changing it and what happens is the tip itself it's about you know 35 dollar item you know when you've gone beyond that 80 gallon mark and you're into 100 gallons 150 gallons you actually begin wasting more paint and over spray and fall out you could end up on an entire house waste a whole gallon of paint so not only you have overspray to clean up overspray on plants and stuff like that but you're actually you're losing the money that would cost you to just buy a new tip so the tip actually pays for itself when you change them in time a fine finish tip like right after that 20 gallon mark you're not getting a good high quality fine finish you're not getting the proper atomization the fine finish spray pattern that you should be getting so you really should be changing your tips your fine finish tips every 20 gallons and then your production tips every 60 to 80 gallons if your boss is telling you that because i hear this a lot from painters that my boss would never allow me to change the tips that often well unfortunately then your boss is not allowing you to be an effective painter to uh achieve good quality results and you have an argument like well the over spray that's going to be created that's going to be blamed on me um the loss of pain that's um you know you're losing by using what we call blown out tips you know it's just going to cost the owner of the company more money now i typically around 30 gallons 20 30 gallons we can actually begin to hear it and you'll hear like a tip itself like a tip that's got 100 gallons 150 gallons you'll hear a really loud hissing sound coming out of the tip as that orifice begins to kind of become a circle you hear it hiss you see more overspray coming out on the guard the plastic part of the guard you get a lot of built up over spray on there and once again you get larger particle sizes that are going to hit your substrate and bounce off and become you know just wet paint on the ground wet paint on your roof so you know what it comes down to is change your tips to save you money to save um liability and overspray it's just going to just make you a better painter 20 gallons for um in my opinion 20 and not and it's not necessarily just my opinion i actually saw the study i'm going to see if i can get a hold of it and post it in this video so you can see that the actual curve of these tips and these were the major manufacturers titans tips graco tips you know they were all tested so um it's out there it's um and i'm gonna try to make that available for you here in this video if i can find it you know once again a little information on tips how long do tips last if you've got any experience with tips um and how long they last for you let us know down in the comments section below um hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell that way you can get more videos right here on paint live tv talking about airless brand and tips out [Music] you