3 Tips to Improve the Life of Your Spray Gun

We often receive calls for replacement spray guns due to the gun breaking down. The thing with a spray gun is that there is not that much that can go wrong. You have a fluid chamber for paint to be supplied and an air chamber for air to be delivered. Granted there are internal parts that over time wear with use with the most common parts being the fluid nozzle, fluid needle, and air cap. However, with proper care and proper equipment that is matched to the coating you’re spraying, it is not uncommon to get months or even years of use out of a spray gun before needing to perform any rebuilding. With this in mind, we will discuss the top 3 three things to do to drastically improve the life of your spray gun.

1. Properly clean your spray gun with every use – One of the most common issues that we encounter is that a customer sprays a 2 component material and then fails to thoroughly or properly clean their spray gun. The end result is that the spray gun becomes plugged with hardened paint resulting in it being unable to be used.  For a thorough discussion of proper cleaning for spray guns please check our article here.
2. Perform this step when changing the fluid nozzle – If you will be changing the nozzle on your spray gun make sure to remove the needle from the spray gun so that no additional wear occurs to the needle or make sure you pull the trigger fully back which will also prevent additional wear from occurring to your spray gun.
3. Properly match your equipment and its components for what you’re spraying – If you are spraying a highly viscous abrasive material like Zinc or CARC it can often be a good idea to consider using hardened metal components for your spray equipment. Many spray guns come with a tungsten carbide nozzle and needle available which will stand up to wear significantly better than the standard stainless steel that is used.  Additionally, with highly viscous and abrasive material it can often make sense to consider an airless sprayer as they will typically hold up better under high abrasive material use.

By following these three tips you should drastically improve the life of your spray guns and help reduce the costs of your finishing equipment needs.