Should I Buy a Cheap Spray Gun? 

It is so good to see a guy who is making videos just to help not for personal gain keep it up dude

There can be no doubt that a cheap gun in skilled hands will out perform an expensive gun in inexperienced hands.

I have an E36 that I am restoring slowly and this channel will save me about 10 grand when it comes time for that paint job, thank you very much!

Decent person telling you how it actually is!!! Much appreciated!!! So much help and guidance, big thanks to you!!

Nice to see someone lay clear like you are supposed to. BOMBIN' IT! Less orange peel. NICE WORK!

The way you move your gun around is awe inspiring. Cant wait for the weather to warm up here in Missouri some so I can paint a couple of things myself.

love this guy. he keeps it real and love what he does

It's so cool that you are willing to help all of us novices out . I am wanting to spray my first van and I have only ever sealed and lacquered cabinets . These Vids are great !

with the cost of material the price of the gun becomes affordable very quick very few guys look at this angle, thanks for your professional opinions and videos

Your narration during your videos is superb. You explain things in a clear and concise manner. You make a great instructor ... keep up the good work!

you just can't beat a devilfish I bought on 25 years ago and it still works a treat in fact I'm in middle painting car and waiting for the Base coat to dry I'm just sitting playing with my phone

i found this video to be very good! i knew there would be some difference between a cheap gun and the more expensive one, but after seeing this video its really opened my eye to what is needed to get a better finish on a car! been watching though a lot of the videos from you and i feel im learning so much even tho im doing simple DIY stuff at home im really loving how well you explain things!.

Great video, good to see a pro explaining so any novice can understand. great work mate.

I love the DeVilbiss guns. I've got two, one that came with a 1.3/1.4 needle, the other 1.2/1.3/1.4. 5 guns in 2, great buys n great finishes. great videos gunman, love your stuff mate!

great vid mate. I subscribed cause its rare to see a professional share his experience and his equipment of the trade. definitely spray gun sales will increase cuz d difference in quality of finish of a quality gun is obvious. i love it !!!

A true Aussie artist, very informative, a smooth operator. John H

I have in the past purchased the most expensive gun possible at a "Bargain" tool supply store only to end up sanding and spraying a job over!!! The cost involved with material, time, and anti-depressant medication proved to more than cover the cost of a quality spray gun!!! Save yourself the aggravation and pay close attention to this video, it will defiantly improve the quality of your finished product, even for a beginner that has watched several tutorial videos and taken a little time to practice your technique. thanks for the awesome videos Mr. Gundude.

Great Vid!! Great info and watching you paint is perfect for a guy trying to learn how to be better. Keep up the stellar work!

Am an older guy and have what I am sure is a cheeps gun and after seeing what you did with it I feel like I will give it a shot the red came out really nice I am sure it was the painter and a of of experience very nice job mate. By the way like your vids I am sure your a very good teacher .

110% with you on this one mate, I have a Workquip and its a solid gun for basecoat, however the clearcoat is a mess with the same gun. I just did a spot repair on a bumper bar, and the clearcoat orange peel was a wreck. Resprayed the whole bumper using my new Devilbiss GTi Pro Lite for clear and it made a massive difference!

Good vid good advice. I have an old devilbis compressor that I love. It's a work horse and never wears out.

Mate, your videos are awsome, seriously you help us understand the basics and fundermentals Thankyou Sir:)

I actually got the smoothest finish ever from a 15 dollar harbor freight purple anodized regular not hvlp gravity feed gun.wont last like a high dollar gun though cuz the needle will rust over time

Yes........well I bought a Scorpion 1.4mm and used it to spray my rear panel in acrylic.......base coat was great and the clear coat turned out like a mirror.......no need for cut and buff with 1200 grit sandpaper.......I was happy, better result than a suction gun........it's all about the result you want.............thanks for the vid......great inspiration. :)

Excellent video showing the difference. Besides the lifespan is like night and day as well. Everyone looking at the cheap spray guns should watch this to see the difference. I ended up painting my entire 2dr car I built with a touch up size HVLP cheap gun. It stretched my expensive base coat paint to probably double over the cheap full size gun. If I was doing it for a living I would go DeVillbiss or an Iwata in a heartbeat.

You are a true craftsman!

now I understand why they say that it is the art of the painter and not paint gun that makes magic, greetings from México city

Great videos, i tryed cheap first also, nothing beats a good high end gun, great quality spray job always

JUST BOUGHT A PROLITE! They are black here in the US and Canada. It shows up in the mail in a few days :D Got the HV30 and TE20 cap, and 1.2,1.3,1.4 setup. Can't wait to use it as an everday HS clear gun!! No more shop guns for me!! Already using my own older gti for water-base, and a cheap shop gun for primer. I figured it's good for a new upcoming painter to be buying good quality guns. Thanks for all the recommendations!

Years ago, late 80's, I had the opportunity to work with a small group of BASF technicians/advisors, "using a cheap or even old paint gun for primer" was the topic. While applications varied greatly from one use to another (using the same loaded gun) the proof in the pudding remains even today. How much product was applied, how well did it sand, how much effort was put into getting it flat for paint, and the big one, could I have done any better with a better gun? Inevitably, the answer is always a resounding YES.

Lots of great info, presented very well. Thanks!

Been watching a few vids and been very helpful. many thanks. I used a £12.99 gun to spray a friends classic mini inside and out. turned out ok but it was a ground up build and was the best place to save a lot of money as it was starting to get very expensive. so where as a body shop quoted over 1800 pounds I managed it for 100. it turned out ok but he really uses the car and it doesn't need to be show winning to rally in Scotland. haha. thanks for some great advice.

Will have a play with my cheap gun thanks mate

good advice gunman on these guns. I used the devil boss gto a while back but now I have two Sata hvlp guns which are excellent. I use one solely for colour and one for Laquer, I've used them on both solvent and waterbase paints. they give me an excellent finish.

Hello the gunman, as always excellent companion work, I have the same economic pistol, I wanted to ask, did you use that setup for both painting for clear, psi, turns product and also that notastes difference between the two guns? Greetings! Luciano

Awesome thanx for doing this I really wanted to see what you could produce with a cheap gun more for curiosity as well as to show you do really get what you pay for . I will be picking up my pro lite in the next week or so . I will say bud amazing job with the cheap gun nice work as always mate

awesome videos mate very helpful 👌

Good video thanks mate from London England 👍

Hi gunman... The first gun i have ever bought was the cheap one you showed. And the second was Devilbiss gti pro lite when came to Greece... Very nice video...

Love these videos. Just straight to the facts with demos. Not a bunch of fluff and trying to sell VIP memberships.

Gunman i used a harbor freight purple gun to refinish a hood and bumper on an 08 honda accord. Out the gate i noticed it used a lot more material and needed about 38 psi to lay down in a decent manner The fan couldn't open very wide w/o streaking; I probably got it open to about 6 inches comfortably. With that being said it took maybe 30 min longer than it wouldve if i had used the iwata because it needed a longer flash time from the amount of material going on. But on the bright side it perfected the look of that slight orange peel honda has from the factory and didnt have a terrible finish. For anyone else thinking of using this spray gun considering the strain you put on your compressor, the finish, the material thatll be wasted and most importantly your time it isnt worth using daily but to paint one or 2 jobs itll do the trick but the buffer will be your best friend

Christ, I just stumbled on this one as it is quite old. It would have saved me a great deal of pain and not to mention expense in paint. I bought a workquip HVLP set from Hare & Forbes with 1.4/1.8/2.0 nozzle sets. I am using the 1.4 to apply base and clear with disastrous results. Very bad orange peel of any thing I paint, piss poor fan pattern. Was about to go back to my old 1980's arnold suction gun but thought I would ramp up the pressure on the workquip gun instead as I had already tried from 20-28PSI at my Iwata regulator. So I went to 35PSI today and finally got a good result on my base, but it cost me a great deal of expensive paint in the process. Wish I had come across this vid earlier. I have just purchased a new Devilbiss finishline which I hope comes this coming week. Love your work.............keep it up please.

I have learned on an airbrush and realize that there is a learning curve. I can now do the same work through a 22.00 master airbrush as a 200.00 20/20 once I figured out thinning and what the brush pressure should be set at for each brush. Next up 12.00 spray gun to paint a vw bug and apply true flames should be interesting if I can pull it off.

Nice job gunman mate

DIY here, I’ve had cheap guns and bought too many overall haha I’m currently happy with Devilbiss flg5 1.4 base clear direct gloss epoxy, and Impact Air Gunsa 2.0, I like knowing I have decent quality and finishes the impact lays primer nice so figure less sanding etc. 🤘🏻 Gunny try out that impact for primer it’s a lot better than the standard air gunsa 💪🏼

Hi the information provided is very helpful I follow your steps and it helps me a loughtht.

Killer video man thanks for the info!

another great tip...many thanks...top man....

thanks for your great videos im a DIY guy (love to do some projects at home) and i need something that gives me a good and smooth finish , what brand and model and what spary nose size do you recomand for me ? thanks Mostafa

you make it look so easy, l don't get any where near your finish. well done.

I want start from the underground too . Let try your skill one to one . Thanks gunman .

congratulations your videos are great. Thanks for sharing.👍👍👏👏

Thanks Gunman, very nice instructional video. I'm fixing up an older BMW K-bike and am following your advice on its finish. Just getting a new FinishLine spray gun dialed in and want to do the best job possible.

I think the Tekna from DeVilbiss is the best value gun on the market. Comparable to more expensive guns from Iwata and Sata and others. Tekna Copper for colour, Pro-Lite for clear, Finishline for primer! Luv ya vids - subscribed!!

Great video. Thanks for sharing that with us

the red car turned out nice but to the trained eye i see your point on the subject

you are excellent ,thank you for the info. greetings from Ontario Canada

Very useful. It's a tough subject to get intelligent, unbiased information on. Many people have predisposed views based more on trendiness and brand snobbery, (fanboys I've heard them called) and can't tell you exactly what you get with the big price tag besides perceived status. Out of necessity, I've used cheaper guns for years, and often wondered why I can't get certain paints (usually clearcoats w/hardener) to lay down without a lot of fooling around getting the reduction and temp just right. Even then, you have to spray on the ragged edge of running, constantly making adjustments for edges and vertical transitions. I often doubted my ability, and it just sucked the enjoyment out of it. Now that I'm doing it as a hobby, and started experimenting with more exotic processes, like candies, I find my 'old faithful' mid-priced guns are just that, mid-performance. Fine for painting machinery, and an occasional collision repair (where you often have to match the factory peel), but I find exactly the limits you mentioned. I cannot get the paint flow down to a lean enough mixture to fog on candy dyes without getting a spotty, uneven droplet size. When set to where the gun is working well, the paint delivery is way to aggressive. A lot of folks that argue the cheap guns are just as good aren't pushing the limits, consequently don't see the difference. (I used to be one) While you can do a decent job with a decent performing cheapie (they are NOT all the same), it's generally harder to pull off, and even 1 do-over caused by a gun issue eats enough cash to justify a better gun. Turns out the gun DOES matter.If you're painting for money or doing fine or complex work, it matters even more. I've learned a lot in the past few weeks, and your video put it all together for me. Thanks, Scott PS when reading down, I see you apparently had a demonstration of the syndrome I was speaking of. It makes you afraid to ask this question in a lot of places.

That Orange Peel looks just like most brand new cars these days or even better still. I know here in germany, painters have a hard time replicating the orange peel from new BMW or other brand cars when they go in for a repair, as most good spray guns produce a much better finish.

Great job and great Video thanks.

Great video that answered my questions. I do Hydrographics and use a cheap Chinese spray gun and with the Hydrographics it hide ALLOT so it always did the job for me. I am now starting to get into Spectra Chrome so I have to now make my Orange Peel pretty much non existent. So looks like I'm off to pickup a good quality gun tomorrow and get to practicing!

Thanks for sharing video and honest opinion

very nice advise I have always used cheap guns lol and sanded back to get the right amount of orange peal I don't paint to often but will be doing few doors next month

Prefect thx for video.

hi mate what clear coat type would best for solid color(red,yellow,black etc), i have some cases that using High solid clear coat on Solids color might make paint wont 100% cured..

these are awesome videos you do, and they have answered something that was eating at me, I'm no spray painter , but have done a few cars in my time, back 20 or so years ago I did reasonably good jobs only used acrylics back then,a couple of years ago a mate wanted his body kit sprayed in two pak. I could not believe the massive amount of orange peel I was getting mind you he bought me a real cheap hvlp gun. I got so disgruntled that I couldn't put a flat coat down I ended up buying a cheap iwata thinking it will be OK because of the brand...I was so wrong..orange peel to the max..I've really been put off 2 pak thanks to these results...but I see some if the settings are different to what I tried and now I'm building a project car for my son, I have a renewed faith in giving it a spray job..fingers crossed, so thanks for posting these vids you do

Has identical to the blue that I use for agricultural and construction machinery and it is absolutely ok for that

very nice work really nice flow with your hands it shows you have done this more than twice lolo just kidding but a wanted to ask what size compressor are you using? i have a 26 gal C.H. &i was wondering if i use it intermittently like you were doing in your video do you think i would be ok ?

Wonderful sharing

Good vid bro, great comparison , many thanks

Hello!perfect video with so much information. With the carmix gun you use 40psi and in basecoat? Thank you

I've learned a lot from your vids, Thank You! I'm going to get a new gun to replace my old Sharpe Platinum with a 1.4 tip. I paint dealer brand tractor paint (acrylic enamel) on Antique tractor restorations. I was thinking about a 1.3 tip on the new gun for finer spray. Would I be making a mistake. Will the enamel go through a 1.3?

Thanks for the great videos. May I ask what size tip each gun had for the job (if I missed it, my apologies)

Best primer gun ever is the 3m accuspray hg09 with the disposable tips hands down

looks great!

Yeah I've a couple of them, my star brand seems ok for a cheapo gun but it did leave some orange peel but then again I'm a backyard painter. I more just use them for underneath parts crossmembers engine blocks and parts that don't get seen full on. Looking at you use the two I can see the difference, and man you can really paint.

Fellow every one thank u for this video and wonderful comments I have questions I found some spray gun 1.3 and other 1.4 which is the best one?

What would you recommend for spraying a galvanized tin house trailer roof? I want to cover large ares quickly (I have 5 roofs to do) and uniformly and thickly and things like finish are irrelevant. So would a cheap harbor freight gun work good for this? Will I have to refill a small can a lot? Ill be using Olympic enamel paint. What kind of air compressor should I get.

You made the Carmax look like a champ in the BC/CC application...Good Job! This video is an excellent head-to-head review of the results using a cheap (generic design) spray gun versus an moderately expensive (refined design) spray gun. Here in the U.S., the Carmax design is a dead ringer for the Central Pneumatic HVLP design available at Harbor Freight. I have found that this "generic" gun works well for Polyester and 1K high-build primers. However, I've found that you have to really work to get a flat finish (Base / Clear ) with this style of spray gun as well. Thanks for showing us the difference versus just telling us that there is a difference.

Great video, keep it up bro!

given your audience base for spray painting you really should cover the budget and DIYers out there cause we all dont have industrial compressors and high bucks to afford the elite guns . So i would say this video is one of the good videos that satisfy both the ones that can get better guns and all the pros and cons of cheaper guns. thanks

Excellent informative video. Much more useful than those guys who blather on about nothing specifically useful or practical. Just bought a Devilbiss GTI620g after using a cheap gun much like the one you used here, for primer coat. Don't want that finish for the base or clear, even though I'm only a hobbyist.

It looks like great painter can paint even with cheap spray gun. It would be interesting to see how it works with metallic base coat.

I'm using carmix gun with acryl paints and it have worked very well in random use. Actually for that price (25eur = 30usd) I can't hope more. It's true you cant get perfect gun 30usd but for that money quality is very good. Anyway thanks for this comparison and other films, it is very nice to watch professional that gives advices to others =)

Good source of information.

Thanks again for the best tutorial videos I got my tekna pro one month ago painted my friend 01 integra type r, is just the 2nd time I painted car first time I painted my personal car 74 vw bus with a cheap gun and you can see the difference I got some orange peel but maybe my technique I need more practice I used this gun for basecoat with 1.4 tip t 20 air cap and for clear 1.3 t 20 air cap 24 psi 80 gal air compressor Olso I painted in my back yard at 90 degree F Questions hope you don't mind 1- the thinner you use for blending is special thinner for blending or just any regular 2- there are different ways to do blending? 3- when you do a full restoration on a classic What is the best way to do it? What primer self etch primer then epoxy and Then polyester primer epoxy again or sealer How many coats of base and clear, I'm confused especially with primers 4 do have any video about rust repair ? you talk and explain everything on your videos thanks for that Cheers

can you still get good results with just using the PSI gauge on the air compressor? or is it absolutely needed to have the PSI gauge right on the gun? I'm looking for a cheap gun as I really only will use it once or twice.

Hi. Great reviews (not only this one ;-) ). I am thinking about getting a DeVilbiss FLG 5 (probably the followup to the FLG 4) - do You think it can be used to spray nitro and/or polyurathane lacquer?

enjoyed your video and expertise.

Tanks man!🙃

Hi gunman love ya videos mate,im over in uk and do a bit of a allrounder job in a bodyshop with non heated booth so its hard to hammer clear on wet and at 2 bar so just wanted to ask if you have had good results with sata 3000 rp at lower pressure ? keep them vids coming and wish we had your weather lol

Very nice job

Beautiful job man, just finished the video and you might find it "acceptable" while I find it awesome, but if you only saw the crappy jobs being done here in my country !

Am I better off with a quality 1.3 mm gun (like Iwata W101 131G) AND to dilute my primer - Or with a cheap kit with multiple heads like SprayIt ?

Hey I'm starting to paint bikes and what kinda of gun should I buy to get a good bike paint finish thank you . And good work keep it up.

I have tried all kinds of spray guns and they all do a good job if you set them up properly. I wish that Devilbiss guns weren't so expensive.

Excelente vídeo, gracias !

Hi I am starting my custom painting for Helmets, What kind of gun and paint do I use, and what kind of primer do i need to use. This will be very helpful for my startup design work. would you please help me by some of the tips.

Hey gunny Could you please do a vid on the gti total breakdown and clean and proper re assembly please mate Keep up your vids and good work bro Legend

Thanks for this tutorial. How you paint in the same place with a different colors?