Love my Earlex 5500.

[keith micinski]

I painted this gable end with my Earlex 5500 and I can't believe how much nicer it was then using my airless sprayer which would have taken a half hour to set up, 3 gallons of paint, over sprayed on everything, and then taken 45 minutes to clean up. I used a water based paint and watered it down as much as I thought I could but it was still a little to thick. I am using the 2.0 needle it came with. I think I would have been better served using an oil based paint since it seems like from what I have read you can cut it back with mineral spirits as much as you need to get the viscosity your looking for. I am still happy with the unit and the outcome though.

[Kevin Bourque]

I painted the board & batten siding on a pole barn last week. On Thursday I spent 7 hours painting one gable end with a brush and roller. On Friday I bought a cheapo Wagner spray gun from Home Depot for $75 and painted the front, back, and the other gable end in less than 3 hours. It looked great...for a barn that is. I would never even consider doing any interior work with the gun since it spits and leaks paint, but for $75 it was well worth it.

[Lex Boegen]

I haven't painted my house with my 5500, but I have painted three exterior steel doors. I should have thinned the paint more, because I got a heavy orange peel from it, but as it turns out, I like the texture it gives the door. The otherwise flat plain slabs of steel now have a little more visual interest. Sometimes mistakes turn out better than the original plan.

[J.R. Rutter]

Nice looking Mk5.

[keith micinski]

Thanks J.R. I have found some plastic cups with lids http://www.finishsystems.com/sprayguncups.html so I am going to be able to figure out the mixture for the white paint I use the most and then just easily mix a cup up and save the leftovers for later.

[Curt Harms]

Thanks J.R. I have found some plastic cups with lids http://www.finishsystems.com/sprayguncups.html so I am going to be able to figure out the mixture for the white paint I use the most and then just easily mix a cup up and save the leftovers for later.

Hmmm, do you know if any of those cups, particularly the 104-1 nylon cup about half way down the page will fit the Earlex gun? I don't know how standardized these things are. That would be downright handy if they'll fit.
Edit: I emailed finish systems. I'll post back to this thread if I hear anything good.

[Jack Wilson50]

I painted some adirondack chairs with my 5000 last summer with exterior latex paint, they turned out great.

[keith micinski]

Hmmm, do you know if any of those cups, particularly the 104-1 nylon cup about half way down the page will fit the Earlex gun? I don't know how standardized these things are. That would be downright handy if they'll fit.
Edit: I emailed finish systems. I'll post back to this thread if I hear anything good.

THe 104-1 is the cup I want to order. I guess I just assumed they were standardized.

[Curt Harms]

THe 104-1 is the cup I want to order. I guess I just assumed they were standardized.

I heard back from Bob at finish systems. He recommended checking where I bought the system. I measured the Earlex cup's mouth diameter and stud size & placement and emailed them. I'll see if I hear back. It would be nice if the dimensions were indeed standard. I was going to put a cup in their shopping cart to check shipping and got this: "NoScript filtered a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) attempt from[http://finishsystems.com]. Techncial details have been logged to the Console". I suspect this is just poor coding on the shopping cart provider's part but it still doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

[Rick Lizek]

Use Floetrol instead of water...no orange peel. I use it for all painting...even brush painting. Penetrol for oil based paints.

[keith micinski]

Ya I have been wanting to try Floetrol but just haven't gotten around to it. I sprayed some interior paint with this unit and it worked out pretty well. I think the viscosity of this outdoor paint was about 5 times that of the interior so that wasn't helping matters any. Please keep me updated on those plastic cups because I have been meaning to get some for a while and now I am thinking about it seems like I probably should order a few if they fit.