Opinions on cheap powder guns

[Zpider]

Hi all...

I know many use a cheap gun like the Caswell, Hot coat or the Harbour Freight guns. What kinda result are you getting from them? I know that an industrial setup gives better results, but i wanted to hear from you whos in the same situaion as me, and just wanna try powder coating.

My main work today is coating with the Techline coatings.

[Electrathon]

The Caswell and Harbor Freight guns are similar design, Both have the powder on top. The Hotcaot is on the bottom. I have used both kinds and have had excellent results with both. My understanding is the only real difference in a professional and a home gun is the powder transfer is higher in the professional, so you will have less waste. There should be no difference in quality of the finished product.

Your finished job relies more on the prep work than on the application gun.

[Zpider]

Youre right there, same with the coating i apply today, wrong preparation = crappy result.

One thing i hear over and over again is that the cheap guns dont charge the powder enough...

[jtagger19]

I have a $3000 wagner gun and 2 hobby guns
the only thing I like about the expecive one is that you can adjust the KV to 100 to get a better coverage of powder in deep areas
down side is that it only works with 5lb of powder
so I mostly use my hobby guns
end results have more to do with the quality of the powder and surface prep

[dannydone]

Hobby guns made my life alot harder then the Wagner I bought.

1. Not enough charge

2. Always a problem trying to get in those hard to reach areas which causes you to add more powder which causes orange peel.

3. The rubber o-ring seal expands and needs to be adjusted often or replaced.

The hobby guns offered are exaclty what they are "hobby guns". If you go on Ebay sometimes you can get a good deal on a nice professional gun and you will notice your work will come out alot better with less effort.

[Zpider]

Well, since this it just a complement to our coating of Techline coatings we ordered the Caswell gun now. So, gonna give it a try and see. If PC turns out to be more business than i expect, then maybe we end up with something more of a pro gun in the end, but for now this seems like a way to start at a low cost.

Thanks all for the input.

[Popeye]

jtagger19,
Why only 5lb powder? You should be able to get or make a fluidizer hopper. The one we use handles 1/2 to 5lb of powder.

[jtagger19]

how do you go about that ??
I bought it used and use it as I got it .
if I'm able to use 1/2 to 1 LB of powder it will be perfect.
cuz that is the only down side to it

[hvac36]

Well if the biggest problem with the Hobby gun is the Power Supply why not just up the Power ? Let me do a little research and see what I can come up with. If they can do it in the big guns why not the little ones ? Hmmm give me a few days...

[Popeye]

jtagger,
What does your setup look like? I'm sure you have a powder pump that siphons the powder out of the box. Two hoses go to the pump, correct?

We have hobby gun and could never get the results we were looking for mainly because most of what we spray is larger items. Constantly filling the cup was a pain and not very productive...for us anyway.
I noticed there was a sweet spot, a certain powder level in the cup and it shot great.
Don't get me wrong the hobby guns are GREAT and a heck of a value, we just can't justify a pro setup at the moment.

I bought a hopper from "east..." in hopes that would solve the problem, it didn't so save your money! I've got one for sale...

We got a chance to look at a pro setup and the big difference was the fluidizing powder hopper and a powder pump. We ended up making several fluidizing hoppers, they'll work evenly from .5 to 5lbs in the hopper.

Next step was to get everything so it was user friendly. Fabricated a control box with 3 pressure regulators, of those the one controls the siphon pressure on the pump, second one controls the dilution pressure on the pump and the third controls the fluidizer pressure.

There's some relays, transformer, 3 solenoids and some switches to control manually if we want. Did away with the foot switch and disassembled the hobby "box" and mounted it in our control box. Mounted a momentary switch to the trigger... 3/8 hose from the pump to the powder inlet on the gun and Viola it works

I've been thinking about talking to Caswell and see if they'd like to sell this setup. Don't know if they would be interested or not...

Hvac36 is correct... the big thing is need more power!
Hvac36, I was in the Hvac/r business for almost 30 years.