Eastwoods Dual-Media HVLP Paint Gun Demo - Paint By Numbers

One of the big keys to shooting is getting the air valve knob set correctly. Generally one wants to start by opening the knob full bore, and then decrease air as needed. Here you can see what happens if there is too much air being supplied. The fan pattern will "horse shoe" and only stripes at the top and bottom of the fan will be present.

Besides making paint guns and materials, Eastwood also has created a line of over 30 show-quality single-stage acrylic urethane paints. For our story we chose several of their killer metallics, such as this one dubbed Gasser Green Metallic. Be sure to thoroughly mix paint before each use.

The Eastwood urethanes are a 3:1 mix, which means the final concoction is three parts paint and one part activator...

...Depending on how much paint ones wants to mix up, locate the correct guidelines on the mixing cups and pour accordingly.

Once mixed, pour the paint in the gun--always with a strainer. Another tip is to always designate guns for specific purposes. For instance, since Styles is spraying a finish coat, this gun will be designated as a full time finish coat gun. Primers, sealers and undercoats contain much more dense particles that can clog nozzle passages and corrupt spray patterns.

When painting always begin at the top or bottom of the panel and overlap each pass by 50 percent to ensure even and complete coverage. Also, let off the trigger at each end of a pass, and then engage the trigger at the beginning of the next. This will help save material, and keep the area from filling up with unnecessary overspray.

On this piece of cardboard, Styles has shown a 50 percent overlap technique. Note how the second coat would cover half of the first coat.

It's also important to be sure to keep the gun parallel with the panel. When painting, lock your wrist in a fixed position and move your arm with the panel as opposed to your wrist, much like golf! It's ideal to have the gun 5-7 inches away from the panel. Another thing to keep in mind is to keep your movement at a steady constant speed; this too will help ensure an even and smooth finish.

Before Styles had the gun dialed in for large panels. Here he is spraying some of the Eastwood Malibu Sunset Orange Metallic in a tiny spray pattern. By toning things down (cutting down the pressure), he can spray with a very minimal fan pattern, as opposed to covering a large area.

As Styles soon found out, the new Eastwood Concourse gun is a very versatile gun, as evident by this quickie flame layout he threw down while getting comfortable with the gun.

Here's another example of the versatility of the Eastwood gun. With this gun one could paint just about anything, large areas, small areas, layouts, and more. From this point we have covered the ABC's of painting, now all it takes is to dive in and do it.

After each use of the gun always clean it. When using solvent-based material use lacquer thinner. As for waterborne material simple tap water will do the trick. Whatever the case may be always clean the internals of the gun.