How to Set Up an HVLP Spray Gun for Furniture Refinishing: A Step-by-Step Guide

hey so this is one of our videos our furniture flipping course videos that I've posted right here on YouTube free now if you want to see our whole entire course you can go check it out at paint life supply.com the whole course includes over 40 videos it starts from how to Market yourself the flip Furniture to actually how to repaint Furniture how to prime it how to sand it how to flip it basically and make money doing so hopefully you enjoy this free video from our furniture flipping course and go check out the whole thing at paint life suppli so today I'm going to be talking about hvop spraying and setting up an hvop gun to do Furniture flipping I've got an aollo 7700 atomizer gun right here so I'm going to be going over a few of the features on it and showing you how I set this thing up the unit I'm using I'm using an Apollo Precision 6 hp sprayer right there and it has a digital readout that's where you actually set the pressure when it comes to spraying on a lot of hvop guns and setups you would be adjusting the airf flow right here but one of the nice things is about the Pao I'm just going to back this thing all the way out I'm going to have full air flow coming to it I'm going to make my micro adjustments you know over there at the um at the the turbine I um figured out spraying Furniture cabinets everything I spray using 2 K polyes I sprayed at 7.5 PSI so I never have to make an adjustment there I never have to make an adjustment on the gun right here right here this is is my material flow this is what's going to send more or less product out of the cup right there so I'm going to typically I start off I'm going to turn this all the way in to the minus right there so there's no material and I'll start backing it out to get more material and I'll make those adjustments you know as I'm getting this thing set up I do have a dial right here this dial right here this thing is going to turn it from a circular pattern if I open It Wide Open it'll turn it to a wides spray pattern and I can dial it in anywhere in between so it's going to go from circular and begin starting to get wider and wider as I turn it so I turn it counterclockwise it's going to be a small circular pattern and the circular pattern will get smaller and smaller with less material so if I want that circular pattern to get bigger and bigger I'll take and start sending out more material I got my cap right here the cap will rotate where I can take my pattern spray it vertical or spray it horizontal just by simply turning the cap right here I've got a little feature right here this is going to be the pressure uh relief valve right here so when I'm done spraying you know there's pressure in here 7.5 PSI pressure I don't want to just release this and let the pressure come out through there I'm going to turn this little valve it's going to release the pressure out through the valve and then I can open up the gun right there now there are multiple options you can use this is what we call a siphon feed Cup right here this is what I predominantly use or you can use a gravity feed Cup right here Gravity meaning grabby is what's taken the product and sending it to your gun with pressure coming up through the top of the gun siphon it siphoning it up from the bottom from pressure being put into the gun coming to your tip it's really personal preference you know with the gravity feed um cup up top right here you can have really tiny amounts of material that to um spray with it so if you got something you're spraying really really small and you don't need a lot of material one of the advantages is you don't need a lot of material to get this thing spraying just tiny bits if you're spraying inside of cabinets and stuff that gives you uh a smaller profile to be able to spray inside of like the cabinets or inside of drawers Etc the this is a larger profile right there but this with a gravity feed it kind of blocks my line of sight and when I'm spraying and something that's kind of one of the um disadvantages that I don't like I predominantly use a siphon Fed Cup this is my setup right here that I use right here it does have if you're curious what this thing is so this is the air comes in this is sending air down through this oneway valve into my cup that's actually what's pressurizing the cup and sending material up through the intake tube of the um gun itself if you begin to spray and start to tilt this thing you'll we sideways where the paint could actually go up inside you know this thing and the valve's not working correctly you can end up sucking you know paint up and there it's happened to me you know multiple times you could pull this off clean it out the paint if it dries in there that it'll you'll mess up that one way valve I always have extras of of these in case paint gets up inside there I just switch it out you know really quick so there's some of the features about the gun now when it comes to uh the needle nozzle and cap the needle when you're pulling the trigger there's a needle that's sliding back and forth the nozzle right here I'll pull off here's your nozzle right here on the end and then this is your capab so when it comes to furniture refinishing I'm using you know 2K poly there's a lot of them out there polyurethanes um 1K meaning you know you're not adding anything to it you're using it right out of the can 2K means you're catalyzing it to increase the durability hardness scratch ability a lot of other things water resistance so one and 2 K Poes all of them that I use I use the same needle nozzle and cap so it really simplifies it you don't have to actually switch this out ever and I've come down to using the 1.3 needle and nozzle setup so they go together the 1.3 needle and nozzle and then I use the BHS cap the gold cap so the BHS cap is a high solids cap so a high solids product so that's a combination now there's you can use larger needles and nozzles if the products are thicker or smaller needles and nozzles if the small if the products are thinner you like um lacers and stuff thicker if you're using over-the-counter products like Emerald urethane or Benjamin more advanced you if you get stuff that's really thick you would have to start to thin out your product you know possibly you know if you're using a 1.3 needle and nozzle set but for the products I use been uh using this same needle nozzle set for years and never had to actually you know use anything different right there so that's a little bit about needles and nozzles so when it comes to setting up your gun too so I'll just give you a little handy little tip right here so I'm going to release my gun you can see my um intake tube with the screen on it it's facing forward so it's coming down and facing forward you can have it facing in a lot of different directions and actually adjust that you would loosen this up right here and then you would be turn this top right here so I typically I'm spraying you know when I'm spraying down as you start to tilt it down you know the product you're you would actually start if you really low on product you would start to have air right here it's facing towards the back you could end up sucking air and no product would come out so you'd want it to be facing forward as you're spraying downward so a lot of it is just downward you're spraying the top of a piece of furniture at top of the table so more common to have it facing you know downward if you're spraying upside down so if you're starting to turn it upside down like this as you move it you're going to have air right there and you would possibly want it to be facing the opposite direction you'd want it to face up so you see is it is it's SP if it's facing forward that gives me the advantage spraying downward if I'm spraying upside down it's facing upward and if I'm low on product it it can end up sucking there but it's pretty rare that I'm spraying upside down it's most of the time it's downward so I want it set up so it's simple little tip when it comes to you know setting up this ray gun properly and having it you know feeding the direction you want it to feed so now in order to switch this all I got to do I'm just going to loosen up this right here this is going to release I can take the cap right here switch the cap to the bottom going to cap off the top hook up my air valve I just went from siphon feed to a gravity feed cup just like that opposite just unhook your valve take off your cap screw on my siphon feed cut want to make sure Direction I'm pointing so I want I'm pointing forward so forward is right there and to tighten that up [Music] attach my cup be attach my valve ready to go from gravity feed to siphon fed when it comes to HVLP spraying you know there's good sprayers um there's bad sprayers there's sprayers that are going to get to give you a decent finish there's sprayers that are going to give you an amazing you know finish I used multiple guns multiple sprayers you know over the years great go Titan um Apollo I've used uh and others and those are some of the major ones I use now this is an Apollo 7700 atomizer gun this is the gun I use absolutely love this gun it's um the best gun I've used so far and if you've never used an hlp gun before it's a little different than an heirless rare aess rare is you know just a gun itself the only thing is you uh can change tips we have some tips here you throw on a different tip and you can adjust the pressure you know at the sprayer and that's just about it an HVLP gun typically has you know an air valve and typically has a fluid valve so you're going to control air by one fluid by another now when it comes to your cabinet refinishing and Furniture flipping and refinishing on the atomizer gun I back this um the air all the way out so it's going to be full um air coming through this gun so it's backed all the way out this a a pretty you know critical tip right here to understand that if you're use an an Apollo I use a Precision 6 um that it actually has a pressure control knob at the sprayer so you control you know how much PSI is coming to your your gun by that knob and you can it has a digital readout tells you exactly you know what you're running so that's where you actually control you know your airf flow not right here you want this wide open I typically have my airflow set for the products I'm using it's 7.5 PSI it's the same every every time so you're eliminating having to mess around you with adjustments I know the products I use 7.5 this is all the way backed out the only thing I'm doing is I'm messing around with how much um of my coating is actually coming out so I'm going to take this I'm going to turn it there's a minus I'm going to twist it turn all the way in and I'm going to begin setting you know how much product is coming out and I make this adjustment every single time I begin spraying so I'm going to you know get the thing running I'm going to be in my booth you can just spray it up against some cardboard or something and I'll start to back this out and begin spraying to I have you know just the right amount of paint the right amount of atomization you know that I want I'm going to be backing this out and adding more and more product the more product that comes out the faster you can move and I want to move pretty quick when I'm spraying with my hlp sprayer so that's um some some of the things with the guns I know you know some people you've never used an HVLP this thing could look pretty intimidating but it really is simple all you're doing is just adjusting this this is what adjusts how much material is coming out just like switching tips on an heirless sprayer the other thing is is needles uh caps and nozzles and that can get you a little overwhelming you get on you know our website or get on Apollo's website and you see all these different caps and you're like oh my gosh what cap there's some recommendations and stuff but what needle what cap do I use when it comes to furniture and cabinet refinishing it's very simple I use only one cap I only use one needle and nozzle combination I use a BHS cap this gold cap and this is uh really designed for spraying you know High solid materials latex paints and um you know polyurethanes the the needle and nozzle you know there's you know a bunch of different sizes just like there is a bunch of different sizes in heirless rares but I only use one uh needle size I use a 1.3 needle and nozzle set with a BHS cap it's very simple that's all I ever use for doing furniture refinishing and and on painting the thing you do you have the ability to you know turn your fan with you know vertically or horizontally kind of like airless brand you can just turn your gun to make your fan a pattern vertical or hor izontal here you just do it by turning your cap right there and that's going to you know help you you'll save product in overspray you do have this dial right here this is going to adjust give you the ability to adjust um your fan width so I can go like from a wide fan width I can turn it all the way down to just like basically drawing with it just with by turning this little dial right here so you have you know mul multiple things which is really beneficial when it comes to you know uh painting furniture furniture has all kinds of different sizes widths and stuff the Coatings are really expensive so you know you don't want to have a lot of product waste a lot of times so if you're just doing something really small you can dial this thing down into just a little small fan pattern and and spray with it so it's not you know as overwhelming or as intimidating as it looks and sounds but you know just getting it really d in you know sell your saving product cuz the product you know the products that we use once are catalyzed you're about $120 a gallon you're using maybe just a little bit um a half a quart on a piece of furniture to a qut so it's um it's not like ridiculously expensive but it can be you know expensive and you don't want to have a lot of overspray and waste you have to have kind of like a plan of attack you know when you're spraying this piece of furniture you know it's you know what should you spray top bottom side we'll just say for instance a coffee table I'm going to be doing the legs first if there's anything like underneath I'm going to be tilting have it tilted up do any spraying underneath then I'm going to hit all four legs I'm going to hit the sides of it and then I'm going to come and do the top of it and when I do the top I don't like the legs and stuff I don't cross-hatch anything I'm going to spray it you know vertically up and down on the leg I'm going it's like what we say going with the grain the grain is vertical so I'm going to spray it you know up down vertically the side r on the coffee table I'm going to it's going with the grain that way I'm going to spray it you know horizontally when it comes to the tabletop I want this thing to be absolutely glassy smooth I don't have to worry about runs at all so I'm just going to load it on I'm going spray it You One Direction I'm going to come back and spray it the opposite direction and we call that cross hatching net and that's going to give you the ultimate glassy finish on that thing and once again I'm going to work quickly so that you know any overrate coming down and hitting the sides of my legs is not going to you know cause it to get rough from overspray because the legs are already starting to dry you know something that will help you if you're us spraying you know with an AOS sprayer hlp sprayer if the temperature is really high or there's like a lack of humidity that it's going to dry like really quick especially if you're not putting enough on you really want to like load your product on say a leg and overlap 50% get it on there so you're not skim coating it or fog coating it like if you're just fog coating it getting a light coat on it's going to flash dry really quick and then your legs can get rough but you know with 2K polyes one of the great things about them is a lot of them are just one coat and done so you got your primer coat and your top coat and and you're done you can reshoot everything but there's times when well I'll just mask off the top or one leg was this I'll just mask off just do that one leg over but you know um it there's never anything you know set in stone you know whether you're doing you know the top first or the legs first Etc you really just got to like look at the whole project as a whole and come up with a plan of attack you know before you do spray it runs can be an issue with an airless sprayer with an HVLP sprayer it's usually just the opposite you got a higher transfer rate you're putting out less product but it's got a better transfer rate and of it's very rare that I get runs with an hlp sprayer the the biggest thing I'll run into is not enough product coming out and I'm and I have to go too slow and sometimes a project I'm sitting there spraying it and it's just taken me you know too long I definitely want to make sure that I have you know my material set where I got enough product coming out enough product transferring on there that as I'm spraying and overlapping it's all jellying together so if it's if you don't have enough product going on as you're moving and you're overlapping you can get what we like these dry edges and dry Feathering edges and you can get some roughness to you know your coating if you're not putting on enough coating so kind it's just kind of like a fine line You'll eventually you'll dial it into when you're testing it out you're seeing the product coming out you're going to go yeah that's exactly what I'm looking for you start applying it you know if you just feel like you're going too slow open it up send more material if you're feel like you're just getting too much and you got some runs just you know back Material off and once if you're using 2K B if you get a run or you get some rough edges don't ever Panic don't worry cuz it dries fast and you can sand it fast it's one of the benefits to 2K poly is 45 minutes later you can sand it and re-shoot it again