Home Made HVLP Turbine for Spraying - Anyone?

I have some older gast pumps (of various models...not even sure if what I have would be for this application) and also a few older spray guns (one devilbiss). I have never sprayed before and am lacking in knowledge but I am thinking about building my own HVLP system and was wondering if anybody has done this and could offer some advice? I am thinking about doing this as it may be possible for me to get into spraying at a reasonable cost since I have a few items that may be able to be used together?

Thanks

barry

Based on your experience level, I would recommend that you purchase one of the HVLP conversion guns - especially if you have an air compressor now. I have the Porter Cable PSH-1 and have been very satisfied with it. There are others which are probably as good.

You can't make a regular spray gun into an HVLP gun.

Mike

The "HV" is high volume- I seriousy doubt a Gast will pump what you need!

I threw that same idea around in my head one day. You would need a high volume low pressure gun to start with if you do not have one. Then you would need a blower sized correctly to provide the necessary air flow at the required pressure for that gun. A good sized regenerative blower would provide both sufficient air volume and pressure. That is as far as I thought about it and decided that if I do get into spraying I would buy a turbine system. But I like your thinking.

Ametek makes almost all the turbines used in the commercial ones. They are basically a vacumm cleaner motor. They also make motors for the PC pancake compressors. Grainger stocks them in many locations. When I built my turbine unit about ten years ago, my turbine came from a Grainger warehouse in Tallahassie FL. Didn't order it overnite, but UPS delivered it overnite. I don't have the ability to do pictures. Granddaughters are here for weekend, so I can't go to den and get Grainger cat for item # right now. I use mine with an Apolo gun and would never go back to straight air gun again. Inlaws from out of state will be here tommorow, and have to go to airport tommorow nite to pick up daughter and great grandson. Maybe about Wed. I can get you model #. Gotta finish taxes Mon. nite and have WW Club on Tues. Aint life fun?

That sounds great....see, I have several Gast vacuum/air pumps and I am looking for specs that I need to be able to use one for a hvlp system. Maybe I don't have one for a hvlp...but I DO know that at least a couple are good to go for a vacuum press! :) I will look for your response when you get to it! Thanks!

Quite the article on a home made HVLP sprayer.



Can be done. Building a set up as I speak. Acquired a free central vac from a friend, smoked everytime he started it up. So he decided to buy a new one. I fixed vacuums for my brother and sister in law's vacuum store. Knew I could rebuild the Lamb/Ametek 115334 heavy duty motor in this particular central vac. Will keep you updated.

I built one a long time ago - then ended up buying a conversion gun and got better results. I built mine based on a article on FWW
( I think it was issue 106 ( May 94) page 87 ). I used an Amtek 3 stage motor, you need to fabricate some parts so that the output could hook up with the turbine hose, and put in filters for the motor cooling and intake of the turbine and then mount the engine in a box and arrange for power and a switch. I found it was not cost effective to buy the gun and hose, so I checked the local papers ( pre craig's list) till I found a cheap hvlp gun and hose. If you decide to do it for something other than the learning experience and challenge, price the gun and the hose, then the motor, when you are done you will probably be pretty close to the cost of an equivalent commercial unit. In some ways it would be like trying to buy a car frame, engine, seats, etc from auto parts stores - you don't really save any money. In the end, the biggest impact will be the quality of the gun. If you get a great gun, you will get good results - though you may have to thin the finish if your motor is underpowered or you have leaks in the connections. If you get a cheap quality gun, you will likely have cheap results, no matter how good your air supply. The other issue is that a turbine unit is too loud for my tastes.