An airless sprayer is capable of spraying any normal, undiluted paint, including emulsions and satin, and will provide an excellent finish. In the past, only oil-based paints could be sprayed, as they were thinner than latex paint, dried more slowly, and did not clog the spray gun nozzle. However, modern latex paints are made from new synthetic resins that are water-compatible, have a finer consistency, and are wet enough to be used in a spray gun. Nowadays, you can use an airless gun or a spray can to spray paint with latex paint. Nevertheless, you may still find that latex paint is too thick for the spray gun nozzle and needs to be thinned.
Here's how to thin latex paint so it can be used in a spray gun. Yes, you can spray paint latex. The most effective way to do this is with an airless sprayer, which you can rent from your local paint store for no more than $100 if you live in the United States. You can also spray latex with an HVLP or conventional gun. However, if you use an HVLP spray gun, you will need to use a high CFM air cap.
The CFM of the Air Cap with an HVLP spray gun determines the ability of the spray gun to atomize heavier coatings. Therefore, if you are going to use latex, you will need the highest CFM air cap available for the particular spray gun you use. If you are trying to use a low-cost spray gun, you may not be able to handle the latex (it will depend on the CFM for which the air cap is designed). You won't be able to spray latex well through a low CFM air cap with an HVLP spray gun. A conventional spray gun will allow you to more likely be able to spray the latex coating with a smaller compressor, but it won't have good transfer efficiency, which can be costly. In addition to how you atomize the coating, you'll also need to consider how the coating is delivered to the spray gun.
Since latex is a thick layer, you'll want to consider a pressure-fed gun. You can spray it with gravity, but you'll need a lot of thinner, which will require more coats for good coverage and can generate much more waste. It should be noted that an HVLP spray gun can be used to spray latex paint. Latex paint is the most common household paint for indoor use; it dries quickly, is environmentally safe and has little odor. While they're not designed for spraying latex paints with a heavier body, that's not a major problem. We'll come back to this in a moment.
Talking about spray paint guns is often confusing because there are different types of spray guns and they are not as good at handling all paints; with the variety of paints available on the market it can be quite confusing. You can use an HVLP gun to spray latex but it needs a lot of power and the paint should be fine enough; so I highly recommend buying an airless sprayer for projects that involve latex painting. This paint sprayer is ideal for spraying thinner materials but may have trouble spraying thicker paints such as oil-based paints and primers at 10 PSI. You could end up with stains and drips on the paint if lacquer is sprayed through a sprayer that has leftover paint particles. People often wonder if they can spray latex with a spray gun since it's a heavy material and they might worry that it cannot be applied. A good deal of the sprayed paint will spread through the air leaving a very sticky air full of toxins in the room. Regardless of which paint you choose it is essential to dilute the paint with water or any other thinning agent such as mineral alcohol or acetone before spraying the paint with the paint sprayer.
The two main paint sprayers most commonly used for painting at home are HVLP and LVLP paint sprayers also known as high-volume low-pressure spray painters. Painting a wall with a brush or roller will take much longer than if you were using a spray gun. To adjust the pressure-fed spray gun here is a tutorial in which latex paint was used as coating covering how to adjust the pressure vessel for coating. Spray painting can be advantageous because it is less time consuming and creates the perfect solid base on which to apply top coats of paint. Spray painters are great for adding primer painting vehicle surfaces mixing and matching colors and applying finishing coats.
