Just curious, from the true pros or other very experienced people...

What’s the optimal gun design for shooting horizontal surfaces like a playfield.

I am not asking because I have not done this before, but to see what the diversity of equipment choice is among people who have had an opportunity to do this more than once and have gone through equipment and optimized a system. I have an opportunity to get a new gun (my old one died) and I want to know what others who have cycled through equipment have decided is optimal in design.

Are gravity fed top reservoir guns good for this?

Is there a better design?

Do you find a larger reservoir gets in the way or is it useful ? Seems like you could mix clear up and fill reservoir a couple times if needed but maybe that sucks (my old gun was a pressurized pot system so I just don’t know).

Anyhow- carry on. I think you get the idea here..

Also, curious about something. When using my old gun with a pressurized pot - seemed like my lines and bottom of the pot held a good couple ounces or more so i feel like I was wasting a lot of material with my old set up. how much clear volume do you mix to spray a single playfield?? Seems like it’s got to be around 3-4 ozs but I needed a good bit more... is it really more efficient to use a gravity fed gun?

Thanks for the response everyone. . Sorry if it seemed snotty to ask for opinions of people with a lot of experience- I thought about that before hitting send on the first post—- I don’t feel like any experience gained using only a single product is super useful if your trying to decide what the best possible type is out of a field of many, so was not super interested in getting a ton of basically random answers based upon a bunch of people like me with experience with one or two items. Bottom line, I have been doing this for years and have sprayed a few playfields and I did not trust myself- so don’t feel bad.

I will for sure look at the spot repair gun by DeVilbiss, I am assuming it’s just a capacity thing and the gun is just a little smaller but works more or less the same as their production guns.

I kinda like the idea of a siphon and a small cup but not sure how available this type of gun is but going to look now that it’s been mentioned. Not being able to spill clear all over would be nice are they also HVLP? Seems like probably not and that finish quality would be harder so I am thinking this is a no for me... maybe they were an older type of system, not sure why I got that from the response, but curious if they were to be endorsed for playfield work.

Anyhow, as for Harbor Feeight, I used to shop there and I still own some of their tools, but have had way to many experiences where the tool basically falls apart in my hands. I want to be the issue if there are problems, my patience level for the other side of the coin just does not exist anymore.

Thanks for the advice!

#

Your opinion is exactly what I was hoping to get- I don’t think spraying a playfield is the important part, I was hoping people like you who use this equipment daily for whatever the purpose would chime in with insight. Thank YOU!

So time for the stupid questions, does a gun that shoots well at a lower PSI use less air. Seems like it might but it’s not true that volume and PSI are the same so .... gotta ask and then gotta ask, should we care about this and does it somehow tell us something about performance. Does 2 part clear atomize better at a certain PSI or are all guns different.

Any recommendations would be taken seriously, so if you or others care to elaborate at greater depth in what you would pick from your tool box or buy to get a quality gun to just do pinball stuff and other small projects... ears open.

Thanks again to all for chiming in. If you spray clear as part of your job your infinitely more qualified than I and I consider you a pro.

So for the Tekana Pro Lite. The kits seem to come in two flavors. One termed an RP kit has the “TE” caps in a TE10 and TE20 I think this is cat #703566. You can also buy a kit with a TE10 and HV30 cap and is described as an RP/HVLP kit where the HV30 cap is the HVLP cap. Seems like many use the TE guns to shoot clear but not sure I am understanding why if the HV30 is advertised for clear coat. Also, both kits come with a few different tip sizes. I see two or three caps and two or three tips and suddenly I have 9 ways to use the gun, and gun settings to further modify each of those. To be honest this sounds overly complex. Is it necessary to adapt the gun for different materials, eg base coat or color or primer vs clear? Do You really need 9 different potential set ups...

To contrast, the Iwata LPH-400 has no cap options and you can buy a variety of tip sizes. I like simplicity, I like this gun for this reason, and it’s been around a very long time and still in wide use... is this gun somehow less versatile than the Tekna or is it perhaps a better design and gun settings allow you to compensate for material viscosity and density?

Finally, seems like RP and HVLP are almost the same but RP may be slightly higher pressure. What gives, should I retitle thread to add HVLP/RP. Seems like some of the recommendations are really RP spray guns.

I am going to wait until everyone has a say before I ask more Qs, but so far seems like Tekna and Iwata are both very high quality products and both are rather expensive

As usual... Turns out the “cheap” industrial compressor I got that motivated me to move ahead and replace the old one will en up, as usual, being a not so cheap addition to the shop