Anyone have a recommendation for a paint sprayer? My initial purpose is to stain my deck, but I might as well get one that I can use on other things, including inside the house.

Are any of those < $100 Wagners or Craftsman sprayers worth a crap, or do I need to spend big money (meaning I should borrow instead of buy )

Just don't do it on a windy day.

My friends' neighbor has a brown speckled Harley now.

OK, Jon, here's the deal, from a retarded homeowner that schmucked his way thru these and kept buying them.

The Wagners that are >$100 have the cup attached to the gun are guaranteed to do one thing - mess up a paint job. I bought an inexpensive one quite a while ago, these things will spit and drip easily screwing up an interior wall.

So, I bought a Wagner airless for a little over $100 at the time, painted the outside of the house, worked good, primered and painted house in 8 hours. Then I throughly cleaned it like the book said. Went to use it a year later, it wouldn't work, the pump valve was frozen up with latex to the point that the housing broke trying to pull the assy. out.

So, years later, I thought that the handheld Wagners must have gotten better, bought the $89 buzzer. It spit paint out like the first one. They only do it once in a while, just enough to screw up a wall.

So, being insane, when I painted the house 2 years ago, I bought a Wagner "Paint Crew" airless on sale for $129 cause all the other airlesses were more than twice the price. I've used it quite a bit for primer, latex ans stain.

The secret is in the cleaning, totally disassembling both the gun and the pump. Not a big deal, takes 15 min.
You have to get absolutely everything out (just like you do on a good HPLV for the car).

Since I've done the cleaning like this, the Wagner has worked flawlessly.
An airless is the only way to go, paints so much better than any other.

This one's like mine but even better because it has a roller attachment too:
Home D- $159.

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So they work ok as long as you clean the heck out of them.

Perhaps I'll get one this weekend.

Wait - just re-read your post. What's the difference between air and airless? If there is no air to mix with the paint, how do you get a mist?

By the way, can you use a HVLP or a LVLP type gun on a house?

I wouldn't, get the airless unit. It picks up the paint and sprays it out under high pressure, atomizing the paint. Airless units are very good with the thick stains and paints that are used in home use situations. Automotive finishes are much thinner.

I used a cheap airless unit once....it worked great for applying the paint. I just had to use a roller to spread it out to where it was smooth and not spotty.

Thanks again for the information. For my immediate needs (spraying my deck with an opaque stain) I'm sure a cheap-o Wagner unit would suffice. If it's uneven I can just spray again; it's a flat, uneven surface so I'm not worried about runs or a perfect finish.

But if I'm going to spend $70 on one, seems like it might make sense to spend $70 more and get a good one that I can use on other projects.

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Anything's possible, but I wouldn't.
Besides, stain mught flow thru one but latex won't flow right.

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What Tom said on the airless.

You're right about the extra $70 making sense.
Buy the buzz box for $70, get pissed, try in on an interior wall, get really pissed. This hand held puts out a cloud of paint, this cloud collects on the plastic basket that sourrounds the nozzle and drips all over the place. When this type of gun runs low, it will suck air. Then it picks up a little paint from the container and spits a big blob out.
When the airless runs out, it just needs more paint and the next time you pull the trigger, you get a good pattern.

The cleaning, like I said is 15 min. What the book doesn't instruct you to do is pull the pump valve (where the hose goes into the base in the pic). Clean it with soapy water and a tooth brush, give it a shot of oil and cycle the motor for a second. When you go to use it the next time, it will work fine.

If you had a chance to shoot with both, you would immeadiately understand.
I only pull mine out once in 5 years but am really glad I spent the extra $$$.

BTW, if you want to buy one of the $70 buzz boxes, I'll sell you one.

I decided that if I were going to do this I should do it right, so I bought this bad boy yesterday, the Magnum pro X7:

http://www.homedepot.com/Paint-Paint- ... eId=10051&catalogId=10053

I read review after review about what a PITA it is to clean the Wagner handheld ones, and the one above that Bill and I discussed was still a pain to transfer paint in and out of the hopper. The Magnum has a tube you stick right into the paint bucket. No dumping, pouring, or mess. And most importantly, to clean it you attach a garden hose to it and run water through it for 10 minutes...done.

I bought the roller attachment, too, so I can paint inside this winter...

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Looks like a nice one, Jon. You wouldn't have been happy with the handheld.

Wagner also says run water thru it.

I'd really suggest that you take the gun apart and pull the pump valve to clean them, especially the first time. Doing both is leas than 10 min. Look for latex/stain in the valve even after the 10 min flush. I'll bet it will be there.

Wet latex is way easier to clean out than dry latex.

Some guys I used to rae karts with were painters. They also used the "just flush" method. I've seen them spend a half hour on a new job just to get the gun to work.

Same thing goes with your good car guns.
I learned all this the hard way.

Now that's a nice rig. Yo won't be sorry.

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Good advice, will do.

Assuming the rain holds off, the first test is tonight on the deck. Wish me luck!

Most likely I'll end up in the emergency room with third degree burns and stain in my hair...

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Hee, Hee, Hee

You'll be blown away how well this thing will shoot and how fast it is.