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How to use LVLP spray gun to paint your car?

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The old days with roller painters are gone, now the future is spray gun. But as almost everything new nowadays is harder to work with. Today I’m gonna explain how to use LVLP spray guns to paint your car. As we know, this kind of spray gun is not so easy to use. You need to buy the right one, have the right nozzles, and have the right compressor and a lot of other things.

This just makes things more complicated, but I will try to explain it in the easiest way ever.

Painting a car using an LVLP spray gun is not an easy task especially if you never used one before or if you never used one before in your car, but this doesn’t mean you can’t do it, or that you shouldn’t try to do it. Of course, you should read this guide carefully and check other guides on our website as well before you start.

I will try to make this post more about the do and don’t while using spray guns, and I will explain more about what you should do with the space you have and the tools rather than what spray gun to buy. Pointless to say that you have to prepare your self to fail a couple of times. But while reading this guide make sure to test it on some object that you don’t need before trying on your car or on the object you want to paint and can’t afford mistakes.

I’m assuming you already have one LVLP spray gun, but if you don’t then make sure to check our guide on the best LVLP spray guns that we wrote last week.

Prepare the space

Preparing the space in order to work is a “Must” because you can’t work everywhere, preparing the space means that you will protect the object and the things near you and you will also protect your self. The best place to work with a spray gun is in your garage, but as we know not everyone has a garage, so if you don’t have one then try to find a confined space and avoid working on open space especially near your house because if you do you will never get a quality painting unless you are really lucky.

Why should you never work in an open space?

Well, one of the biggest, if not the biggest enemy of quality painting is the “Dust”. Dust is really bad while painting because it won’t let the paint to settle and even one little dust can blow all the painting projects because it’s really visible especially on freshly painted objects. And where do we find dust? On open spaces.

Of course, there is dust on garages and other spaces too, but on open space, you really can’t control or clean all the dust because it will keep coming, especially if its windy.

So, what should you do? Well, first things first you need to have an air compressor, not only to use it against the dust but also to use it for you LVLP spray gun since you can’t use it without an air compressor. Now I’m assuming that you already have an air compressor. Utilize it and start blowing the dust away from the space you are gonna work. After you are certain that there is no dust near the space you are working, get some water because it highly recommended that after you have done your part with the air compressor to hose the floor with water.

Once the water dries, you should use the compressor again to blow any dust that it’s left.

But while preparing your space, dust is not the only problem you are gonna face. Another thing you have to do before starting to spray you objects with LVLP spray guns is to protect other objects. You maybe want to paint your car with a “Red” color but you don’t want your garage door or any other object near it to be red, right? In order to prevent that, you have to protect the things inside the garage or near the object, you are working on.

I usually use plastic foil to cover all my garage, but if you don’t have enough plastic foil you can only cover as much as you can, and if you don’t have plastic foil then just use something that you don’t mind getting painted over .

Another thing you should always think of is ventilation. A lot of people tend to forget about proper ventilation. While you should not work in open spaces, you should not work on a closed garage either. Make sure that the space you are working has good ventilation because without ventilation who knows what can happen to you if you work in a closed garage with very little air for a lot of hours painting.

That’s why you should always think about your health and while working with spray guns always use a breathing mask and gloves.

Setting up your spray gun

If you are done with setting up space you are gonna work, then you are ready to start working. A big mistake that most people do, even the most experienced one is that they believe in themself and their guts a lot. Usually experienced people think that they know how much pressure to use by only using their guts and by not using any tools that can help with that! That’s probably one of the worst mistakes you can do! Since with bad pressure, the quality of the color won’t be the same.

So if you are a newbie or even an experienced person that has used a lot of spray guns always make sure to have a pressure gauge at the end of the hose, because that the only way you can truly know on how much pressure to use while working with LVLP spray guns.

TIP
As I have mentioned it earlier on this post that you always should try your spray gun or any other tools on an object that you don’t need. This is really important and it will protect your object that you are working on. If you don’t do this then all the dust and other things will go to your object that you want to look good instead of the object that you don’t care. I have one “Dummy” object that I have used a lot of times, so you don’t need a new object each time you can to try something out, you can use the same one over and over. I usually use it when I want to know the quality of color while using different pressures.

Learn — How To Get Rid of Paint Smell?

Painting individual parts

Since I gave you some tips on how to set up the space you are working and how to use pressure on your spray gun now we are gonna talk about how are you gonna paint your car. Of course, a lot of people just get the car inside the garage, do all the tips I said and then start to paint it. I have seen a lot of people doing it but I don’t recommend that. Usually what I do when I spray my cars or when I’m spraying one of my friend’s car is that I break the car apart as much as I can.

Which part you paint first it really doesn’t matter but since I always try to paint the doors at first I’m gonna give you tips about what to do while painting your car doors. Of course, the same thing I do with the doors I do with other parts as well. So you can use the same tips on almost every part!

When you are working with parts especially with doors make sure they are standing correctly and make sure that the object is not touching the floor. Always make sure that the part you are working on is dust-free. You may have to do the tip I gave you with the air compressor and water on every part as well and not only on the space you are working.

I usually do three layers of paint when I’m painting my car. Where the first one usually consists of primes and the other two paint. You can do more or less, it all depends on the quality of the color you want. If I really want a good quality I usually do like 5 or 6 layers. Needless to say that you need to wait for each layer to dry up before using the next layer if you want a quality color. If you don’t wait and you just use layer after layer the quality of the color is really gonna suck and you will probably need to re-do it again.

Learn — How To Spray Paint Your Truck?

Final words

Even though I didn’t write a detailed guide on how to use LVLP spray guns to paint a car still these tips should really be done especially if you are not really familiar with spray guns and with paintings. If you are not sure if you should start painting your car then make sure to read our other guides as well. Except for spraying your car, heat guns can be used for different projects as well. Make sure to check our post about best paint sprayers for furniture

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We’re a team of engineers, contractors, technicians, and woodworking experts who use power tools daily and share fact-based information, tips, and recommendations. At thetoolgeeks.com, we debunk myths about power tools and share methods to use them effectively.

The Tool Geeks Team

We're a team of engineers, contractors, technicians, and woodworking experts who use power tools daily and share fact-based information, tips, and recommendations. At thetoolgeeks.com, we debunk myths about power tools and share methods to use them effectively.

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