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How to select the right tip for your paint gun?

date
2020/08/15

How to select the right tip for your paint gun?

When using air compressed air spray gun to spray paint (whether it is gravity feed or siphon feed, conventional or high volume low pressure (HVLP)), the spray gun must be properly set to suit the job. Painting is important to a certain extent, but painting is more important.

Rongpeng spray gun

For example, if you want to spray a small panel or a motorcycle fuel tank, you should use a spray gun that is smaller than the spray gun on the side of the truck. You can still use the big gun for small projects, but it will be more wasteful and messy. Instead, you can use a small touch up spray gun to complete big tasks, but it will take longer. You also need to consider the thickness of the paint or primer used. The size of the spray gun affects the fluidity and final finish, which means it may be the difference between a fine paint job and thin streaks of dirt.

touch up spray gun

There are several factors to consider when selecting automatic painting tools and equipment. However, the most important thing for the quality of the work you want to accomplish is to use a spray gun with the correct sized fluid tip and needle to spray paint, primer or anything else you want to spray. Choosing the right HVLP spray gun nozzle size will provide you with the right combination of speed, efficiency, results and ease of cleaning.

Different spray gun head sizes

spray gun tips

Most spray guns can choose several nozzle openings of different sizes, and each nozzle has a matching needle. Rongpeng provides a variety of popular sizes of guns for you to choose from. As a rule of thumb, thicker materials (such as high-strength primers) use larger openings, while thinners use smaller tips.

Usually, paint or primer comes with advice on how to spray it. Usually, the instructions that come with the spray gun will also be accompanied by a convenient spray gun tip size table.

This is the product recommended by Rongpeng Air Tools for Rongpeng HVLP spray gun.

In order to spray clear coating on small parts and items, we recommend using 1.2mm nozzles. For the spraying of the entire car, a 1.3mm nozzle is recommended. The 1.4mm tip is ideal for primers and metal coatings because the droplet size allows the particles to be oriented automatically, thereby eliminating streaks and spots. 1.8 mm is the upper limit of the size of the second primer of the polyurethane primer, and the minimum size you want to use for the second primer of the polyurethane primer can reach 2.2 mm.

The following are some common tip sizes and recommended usage:

0.5-1.0mm-This is very common in detailed spray guns because they provide much smaller patterns compared to the larger nozzles on full-size spray guns. They are also used for thinning and dyeing.

R6000 HVLP spray gun.jpg

1.2mm, 1.3mm-suitable for clear coatings and thinner primers. It will take longer for transparent spraying with a distance of 1.2mm, because this small hole will not allow a lot of fluid to flow through, but it will give you a very fine effect. 1.3mm is an excellent nib for general clear coatings, and is also suitable for thinner primers, water-based and single-stage paints. However, coatings that are too thick will not flow well through this size.

hvlp spray gun

1.4mm-general size. Suitable for most primers, even thicker varnishes. This size is the epitome of universal tip. If in doubt, this is a good starting point.

1.5mm, 1.6mm-Multifunctional nib suitable for primer and single-stage paint. However, thinner coatings pose a risk of orange peel because they cannot be properly atomized. These sizes are also ideal for varnishes.

1.7mm, 1.8mm-1.7mm is the minimum size that most primers should use. It is not a very common size, but it is currently available on the Rongpeng Hvlp A604 spray gun. Generally, 1.8mm is recommended for most primer surface treatment agents. If you want to shoot latex paint, it is also the smallest size, not you can use a high-quality HVLP spray gun to do this.


2.0-2.3mm-Suitable for thick primer and other thicker materials. Avoid spraying primer or single-stage spraying through these size tips, because it will not atomize properly and therefore will not work well.

If you are still not sure which nozzle size you need, Rongpeng can simplify the operation by providing our original Hvlp spray gun H827 and the top A604 HVLP spray gun (multiple size combinations). Purchasing such a kit will allow you to use the same gun to spray all types of paint, making it easier while saving costs.

At this point, we have got an overview of the common nozzle sizes of HVLP spray guns and their uses, the most common of which is the red in the picture above. If you remember that thinner = smaller and thicker = larger, it is very intuitive. For fancy paints like pearls and metal flakes, you may have to make them smaller or larger respectively to make them truly stand out, but the only way to find out is to practice-a lot of practice.