New guy needs help with air pressure

[Jthomas7]

Well I restore Honda XR75 mini bikes made between 1973-1978

I started out painting them bust honestly they didn't look good enough (alot of this was my own fault. I've started having everything powder coated and love how the 30+ year old parts look great! I've been having enough stuff powdercoated where I thought it would be beneficial to start doing them myself.

I've been powder coating for 2 days now goofing around and I've ran into 2 problems.

First I've been trying to sandblast with a compressor that puts out 4cfm at 100 psi, This I know how to fix no big deal.

The second and most annoying problem is getting my air pressure correct on my gun. I've now powder coated 4 small parts and I've used 2 pounds of powder, I'm assuming this is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much.

Basicly my compressor has a set output. So I bought an inline Kobalt regulator and installed it at the gun. I can get the pressure down to the 8psi the gun calls for but the problem is that I can only get the pressure with the trigger pulled. If I'm not pulling the trigger the guage goes all the way to 125psi ( or whatever is in the tank.) When I pull the trigger the pressure drops but not before shooting all my powder out of the gun at 100+ psi. I'm guessing this is pushing it threw the gun too fast and it's not getting the charge needed to stick to the part. The only way I've been able to successfully powdercoat a part is to only fill my compressor to about 30 psi then try to coat. However it's a total nuisance.

How do I fix this problem?

Thanks in advance!

[JTW37]

First off what gun do you have. I guess that it is a caswell. Either way you need only use around 7 to 12 lbs of air at the gun. You will also need an air dryer to catch any moister in the air line. It sounds like you regulator isn't doing it's job. Your gun shouldn't even know about the pressure behind the regulator.
You might try putting a big regulator at the pump, so you can regulate it there as well.

Also DO NOT fill your cup full. only fill it about half at the most.

[baz]

x2
your regulator is either not working or not installed properly

[Jthomas7]

I have an Eastwood Hotcoat setup.

I'm not sure how the regulator could be installed wrong theirs simply an in side and out.

Unless I need to hook the air dryer up before it at the gun instead of after it?

[Jthomas7]

So I just reversed the order of the water seperator and regulator at the gun, problem solved!.