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Review on ๐Ÿ”ซ High Performance HVLP Spray Gun - Master Pro 44 Series with 1.3mm Tip, Air Pressure Regulator Gauge, and Advanced Atomization Technology - Ideal for Automotive Basecoats and Clearcoats by Adam Abner

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Pistols of the same quality are available cheaper

Let's start at the beginning. This pistol is beautiful from the start and you can tell it is of high quality. He came with a quart-sized mug. I was a bit skeptical about the fit of the plastic cap, but made sure it was tight enough after tripping over the air hose and knocking the gun out of its mount onto the table (while full of paint). The plastic lid also has a vent plug that can be plugged if necessary. The first bad experience was when I mounted the gun on a crappy TCP Global spray gun stand. The sharp edges of the stand instantly scratched the pistol's very thin surface, right down to the aluminum. I taped the whole stand up but the damage was done. I use Milton Type P fittings on all my air tools so I adapted the spray gun for this by first attaching a pressure regulator. I was looking forward to using the regulator as I have never sprayed it. I never needed it because my main spray gun was a real Lexaire HVLP gun that draws 110 cfm at about 6 psi and is powered by a three stage Citation turbine. Any pistol that uses an air compressor is NOT a true HVLP pistol. The first thing I noticed was that the pressure regulator wasn't working properly. With the spray handle wide open and no trigger, the gauge simply read my compressor line pressure. When I pulled the gun trigger, the pressure gauge dropped to ZERO and some air came out of the gun. I've been fumbling with this sensor for at least 20 minutes to no avail. I ended up calling TCP Global and spoke to the jerk in customer support. I was going to tell him I would collect everything and send it back but he said he would send me a replacement gauge. When this one came out, it worked just like the first one! I then tried the sensor on two of my other guns and it worked great there. So the problem is NOT with the pressure gauge, but with the SPRAYER. And then, quite by accident, I discovered that I could get the atomizer and pressure regulator gauge to work properly by doing a workaround. With my compressor at about 60 psi line pressure, I have the regulator knob on the spray gun regulator fully open. Then I held the gun trigger wide open and adjusted the air regulator on the spray gun to achieve a pressure of about 28psi. The gauge read 28psi, and the air fan coming out of the gun seemed to confirm that. It shouldn't work like that! I filled a cup with diluent and gave it a try. When the fan was fully open, it was able to produce a very wide pattern with even distribution and no spatter. By increasing the amount of air I was able to create a bad drawing that was wet on both ends but dry in the middle. . . not what you want I just painted a primed bumper cover with this gun and the results weren't great. I will say that this was hardly a weapon bug. The viscosity of the paint after mixing has not been tested (Urethane PPG Delfleet 5.0). It was paint left over from my plane that was painted in 2006 so it's amazing it's still there. In hindsight it definitely needed thinner and I should have changed the fluid nozzle from 1.3 to probably 1.5. Now I need to moisten the orange peel to get the flat surface I want. Cleaning this gun was easy! After cleaning the cup separately, I screwed it back on and fired about a cup of acetone out of the pistol. When I disassembled the gun for further cleaning, it was already flawless! This is a big plus. The included four available air cap, fluid needle and fluid nozzle combinations are another big plus. But learning that the customer service department is very difficult to deal with can become even more of a challenge. . . the time will show. And I can't get over the weird way the pressure regulator works on this gun. I saw a YouTube post describing the same thing. Conclusion: If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't buy it. But now I have it and I suspect it will work fine if I have the right settings and paint viscosity.

Pros
  • Cars
Cons
  • Only available in black