I have a bit over a mile of wooden, three board fence that I need to paint over the course of the summer. I will do any repairs, change some gates and posts, then power wash it with my 2500 psi unit to knock off the algae, bird dirt, and loose paint, then apply the black latex Behr Fence stain that I use. Up to now, I just brush it on, and that goes pretty slow, though I like the finish and fill that I get with a brush. I was thinking of trying one of the new Wagner Power Painter units, just drag out my generator to power it and get some time on the genny to keep it fresh and ready for hurricane season. I thought that the Wagner unit would get more product on faster, and if I wanted to, I could drag a wet brush over it to arrive at the brush finish with the spray unit's speed.

Anyone have any fresh experiences with these guns? I had one years ago, and I am thinking that they might be improved, though I seem to remember that they were clean up intensive. I could also spray it using an air-powered rig, but that seemed a bit intense.

Frank,

This spring I bought and used a cheaper one ($65, if I remember correctly) to paint my daughter’s cabinet doors and drawer fronts with white enamel.

It was acceptable, but it had a few drawbacks.

First, it wouldn’t be good with high viscosity paints such as latexes straight from the can. The unit depends on vacuum to draw paint to the power head through a small diameter tube, and thick finishes won’t work. I really had to thin the oil-based enamel, almost to a water-like viscosity, to achieve proper operation of the sprayer.

Secondly, the unit is NOISY. I suspect the mechanism is a simple electromagnet/buzzer arrangement that actuates the reciprocating “pump” that reminds one of a small hypodermic syringe. So, you are subjected to an obnoxious, very loud BUZZZZZ whenever the trigger is pulled. And the head is a little heavy, especially if you attach the quart-sized paint container with paint. Incidentally, with the paint container attached, you cannot use the gun out-of-position since the vent has no labyrinth tube to prevent spillage.

However, with the proper paint viscosity, and with a small job, the unit works OK, and I was generally satisfied. It puts out reasonable volume, and is certainly will paint things a heck of a lot faster than a roller or a brush. Plus, you can blast into corners and crevices that are otherwise a pain with brushes.

Cleanup was surprisingly easy. Certainly no more of a problem than cleaning a conventional air-powered spray gun.

Personally, however, if I were faced with painting a mile of board fence, I’d use my airless piston pump sprayer with 50’ of hose. Faster, quieter, far less weight in your hand, and more appropriately sized for the job.

Dan

I was thinking of buying an airless, but I would have nothing else to use it on except the fence, and it really only needs a "good" paint job every three or four years. I might rent one and see if I like it. Not sure how expensinve a unit I would need to buy to provide acceptable results.

Thanks very much for the feedback!

Dan (and anyone else):

What brand of airless do you have and how much hp? I'm trying to decide on what size unit I need. Clearly I don't need the largest, since I won't use it very often, but I want one big enough so as not to tax it making it run too hot. I think I"d like it be able to run a 50' hose. I've come across a brand called "Spray Tech" that seem pretty reasonable and feature rich.

FIt
I bought a Wagner Power Roller years ago. It had a pod that you put a gallon of paint in with a hose that went to a control handle with a roller. Good theory , but the valve in the handle would stick in the open position and dump paint all over out of the roller. I got a replacement handle from Wagner, and had the same problem. I will never buy an other Wagner product again. I bought a Campbell Hausfeld airless sprayer from Northern Tool when I built my house years ago. It worked great. I did have to strain and thin the paint. Clean up was a pain. It took a while. It sat for a number of years and I went to use it to paint my picket fence and it had nothing but problems with the pressure valves sticking. It may be better to just rent one if your only going to use it every few years.
Bob with M

Thanks Bob. You know, now that you mention it, I had one of those power rollers years ago. It was a Sears, but I'm wondering if Wagner built it. It was ok.....just ok. I could not get the finish with it that I could with a standard roller, and ended up applying the paint with the power roller, which was quick, then rolling over it again with a conventional roller just to disperse the paint. All in all, that went faster, but I don't think that I used it again.

Problem for me with renting, is that I'm never sure when I'll be home and how long I can devote to the job at the time. If I can power wash say 100' of fence, both sides on one day, then paint it the next, I'd be happy. This will take all summer using weekends without rain only, so I'll do what shows at the road first. Still thinking of buying one.

Frank,

It has been 5 years or so since I used a Wagner. I used it to apply water sealant to a cedar sided house deck. The unit I used had a backpack that held the sealant, which was very handy for climbing up and down ladders and moving around. Clean up was easy. For putting the sealant on the balusters on the deck it definitely beat a brush. I will agree with Dan that the unit is very noisy. I wore ear plugs while I was using it.

Kent

I have a Wagner 404+ which I bought 5-6 years ago. It is a 1/3 hp works well with 1 or 5 gal containers. It has a 15 foot hose but will support up to 50 foot. It says it will use up to 1/4 gallon per minute but I think 1/10 gpm is more likely. I normally thin the latex by adding up to a quart of water to a gallon of paint but I may not have added anything to the fence stain as it was a cheaper box store brand. House paint was S-W. When I stopped application for the day, I run the paint out and then run the water through unit leaving the suction side and gun covered with water, no problem.
I bought the sprayer for the fence & house in town (and never painted the neighbor cars or houses). I also brushed the house before the the coating dried, worked good althou a second person helps if only the hold the brush or gun from getting into the dirt. I use it some on other small jobs with Latex paint but use the air sprayer for oil based. I originally had a small hand held unit which I loaned out a few times but there is a big difference on application.
If you rent besure you have a new nozzle and keep it if you return the machine expecting to rent again. Nozzles life will vary but are good for 25 gallons (???).

Like OCB, I also have a Wagner 404 Plus, but I was mistaken when I stated earlier that I had a piston pump unit -- the 404 is actually a diapragm pump.

Mine is 0.4 HP, and is advertised to pump a maximum of 0.33 GPM at 2500 PSI maximum pressure. I've had it for about 10 years, and I've shot around 75 gallons of latex through it; several remodeled store interiors and one house interior. The only drawback of using the unit is the amount of paint to fill the pump and hoses that is potentially wasted at the end of the job, and the remarkable cleanup effort -- a proper cleanup takes at least half an hour to flush everything, brush out the suction hoses and inlet foot, do multiple purges on the pressure hoses, disassemble the gun and clean it, etc. Furthermore, the filters (which you need to replace every 5-10 gallons or so, and at the end of every job), aren't cheap. Regardless, it's a great airless sprayer for the occasional home painter, but I wouldn't recommend it if your job is smaller than about one gallon. Too much clean-up effort for me.

If you're planning to do the fence in stages (say 50-100 linear feet at a crack), you probably are better off using one of the Power Painter hand-helds, IMHO.

Painting fences brings back a few unpleasant childhood memories of hand-brushing the white board fence around the old farmstead. Don't you know a few people that you (in Tom Sawyer fashion) could convince about the "joys" of painting fences?

Dan

Dan, I agree with you about the handiness of the larger unit for the bigger jobs but the clean up has not been an issue. For Latex paint, and the bigger unit, just stick the gun and the suction in clean water for a couple days works OK before you continue. Then use the liquid in the hoses to thin the mix of paint or spray colored water and then re-spray as you would a second coat( works on porous materials but not steel) . With the hand held unit I have not seem that feature used. At work we coated some tank like vessels (150-1000 Gal). They would go from primer to top coating by just picking up the unit quickly, wasting a shop rag to remove excess coating from the intake and resume coating. Going from top coating to Primer was similar but the application moved to a spot that was observed by an airplane or a ground rodent until the extra top was applied to cover the mis-matched color.
As for the filters, I don't think I have replaced the first one in over 35 gallons.
My comment on Piston vs Diapragm. I best I ever done is about 10 gallons aday but I had professional fellow apply 35 Gallons with a piston one day.

Thanks for the observations, guys. I decided today to try an airless unit, and I have a SprayTech 1720 its way. If the weather holds out, I might be able to try it next weekend on some fresh fence boards that I installed after the last storm dropped another 4 pines on my round pen. One of these days, I hope to be out of the logging business!

Looks a good machine that you will glad to own. Just start by spraying some cardboard to get the pattern and the proper thinning of the coating and go for it.

I would go with an airless sprayer. If you look around at the local classifieds, you can usually pick one up cheap. I bought a used one for somewhere around $50. I love it for spraying latex. Drop it in the bucket and no thinning needed. I am pretty sure the model I have was an inexpensive unit from home depot. You will find you can cover a lot of ground quickly with an airless unit. I loaned mine to a friend and they sprayed a very large garage in a few hours. They had a wagner and did half of one side in about 6 hours, the rest only took about 3-5 hours with the airless.

Good luck, and remember to completely flush the unit, then get some pump saver(?). You disconnect the hoses and put it in the pump head to store it. It really makes a difference.

I bought this one new, and my wife says that it arrived today, so we'll see how the weekend goes. If we don't get rain, I might get to try it, but first I have a lot of old cracked and crooked boards that I want to replace. I generally pre-paint those with a roller so that everything looks decent until the balance of the existing fence gets it's new coat of paint.

I believe that it comes with some "separating oil" that is to be used to maintain the internals during long-term storage. I think that if it works as advertised, it will pretty pay for itself in my mind on this one project. In software that's what we call a "Killer App", where the end usefulness is so pronounced that it justifies the hardware just to have the funtionality.