Another Airless Sprayer Question

BaraibarDrywall

I'm a drywall contractor in Texas, and we specialize primarily in tape and bed and texture work but do contract sheetrock hanging for big projects and special stuff. We do everything from high end residential work to commercial to big multi-residential projects and hotels. Typically new construction only with very few remodel jobs mixed in. Here in the past year we have noticed that some of the residential homes that we were once spraying regular knockdown in before are starting to request all orange peel. With this we have started offering to spray a primer seal to avoid any of the streaking problems that tend to occur with the orange peel. I purchased a small Titan 440i skid to be able to spray on the primer earlier this year. The thing works great and I really like the feel and the ease of use as well as the performance. The only problem I have is that the houses that we're spraying primer in have been 5-6000 square foot homes and it gets old dragging around and having to move the little skid all over the place. The thing has no problem spraying so far just the fact that it doesn't reach a whole lot of places. I've thought about adding another 50 feet of hose onto it but it's already a pain to deal with 50 feet on the skid can't imagine what 100 would be like. We're using Pittsburgh Paints 5-2 sealer because the guys over there gave me a trememdous price on the primer in bulk and it's worked pretty well so far. I was talking to the guy at PPG the other day and started asking him about some of the bigger sprayers as far as prices and performance. I told him about everything and he said he would recommend a Graco Ultra Max II 695 which he would let me have brand new for $1850.00. I've looked around and the price he gave me seemed great the only thing is that about 9 out of every 10 custom homes we do are knockdown so I would still be using the sprayer only on occasions. My question to you paint pros out there is would it be worth it to go ahead and upgrade for the sake of convenience or would it not be that big of a difference. Another important factor for us is speed--I would like to know if the 695 will cut my spray time considerably. We're pretty concerned with getting the paint on the walls and dry and out of the way so that we can bring in the big Spray King and whip out the texture. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

CNC

i just sprayed REALLY thick elastomeric coating out of a rented graco 695, and it worked great, really heavy duty unit, but im just a sparky working on my own shop!

Al Truistic

I see no need to upgrade the machine if the 440i is working for you.

If it is having trouble pushing the primer, then perhaps, but a bigger machine will not cut your time down unless you are thinking about running more than one gun off of it.

There are 2 things that might help. I would recommend running an additional 50' of 1/8 i.d. hose. Yes, I said 1/8 i.d. this would be mainly what you are dragging around the house, and as it is considerably thinner than the 1/4" you are using, it is not that much more to carry, and it is much easier to move around.

Second, you might think about just running more hose in general and leaving the machine in the truck or van. The Titan is rated for 300 feet of hose, but 150 to 200 should be plenty. That way you never have to move the machine or the paint. I have both setups, and prefer the unit in the van, I have a hose reel that I use to handle the 200 feet of hose and can roll up in no time.

Just a few thoughts,
Al

WisePainter

Agreed.

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My advice: Hire a real painter to do it.

Workaholic

I run 2 695's and they are the the sprayers i always recommend purchasing. With that being said, i see no reason to buy a bigger pump for movability. Granted the 695 would out perform the 440 and increase production a bit, but the most practical solution is to add to your hose length. I sometimes spray new exteriors and i will hook up to 300ft of hose to the pump. There is only a little bit of extra work involved, i myself hate stopping to move pumps.

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Sean