There are two types of paint.
Thinning paint for sprayer.
Latex paint is a water based paint.
Donning a dust mask and protective gloves dip a stir stick into the paint for a few seconds then.
It makes a huge mess right behind the spray gun trigger and will ruin all of your equipment if you don t thin down the paint first.
That thickness is also referred to as viscosity which essentially means how well your latex paint and oil paint will flow.
Paints are divided into two categories.
Joepullaroinc until recently you could only spray with oil based paints since they were thinner than latex paint did not dry so quickly and did not.
Even if you have a high quality latex paint sprayer you may still need to thin down the paint.
Paint thinning requires care in order to arrive at the right viscosity for application and to avoid over thinning the paint.
First determine if the paint needs to be thinned.
It is generally thicker than oil based paint and it must be thinned with water especially if you intend to distribute a thin mist of paint over a surface using a paint spray gun or nozzle.
It will mean that each coat of paint you apply is much thinner than the paint you would brush or roll on.
Should your paint spray from the sprayer and form a very fine mist which eventually covers your test board without any streaking or running you are fine to commence your painting project without thinning.
Oil based paint uses petroleum based solvent as its medium while latex paint uses water as its medium source.
Oil based paint also known as alkyd paint and water based paints known as latex paint.
Thin latex paint for spraying typically requires 3 4 coats for complete coverage and a desired finished compared to 1 2 coats of standard latex.
Latex paints are water based and thicker than oil based alkyd paints.
What you need to know about how to thin latex paint for a wagner spray gun.
Should the paint sprayer sputter paint or spray out the paint in a clumpy manner it might be best to thin the paint first.