Slightly OT: What size compressor for paint job?

On or around 31 Jan 2004 09:49:52 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnospam (Aussie0battler) enlightened us thusly:

decide on how much you want to spend on the spraygun first, pick a suitable gun in your price range (advice from yer local car body repair shop or other recognised type who knows spraying cars would help here). The gun will have an air capacity (probably in cfm = cubic feet/minute) on it. Ideally, the compressor needs to be able to pump a bit more than that, otherwsie you have to keep stopping for the tank to charge up again, which don't make for good spraying. If the compressor is short of cfm, then a larger tank will help - the spraygun ISTR typically doesn't operate at very high pressure.

You have an advantage with some LR vehicles of separate panels, which means that with suitable masking you don't have to spray a lot at once.

Thanks for the reply.

If you want to use a HVLP spraygun you need a big compressor with a big tank. For traditional spraying I did the 101 with an entry-level

25 litre, 100 quid compressor. Spend more money on the spray gun and less on the compressor.