# Spray vs. roll&brush doors



## dukers (Aug 28, 2012)

I have to paint 20 new construction doors. I was wondering if anybody has any experience spraying doors. I have only used a brush or roller on doors in the past. But I was interested in streamlining the process but I was worried that spraying them might make it impossible to touch up the doors. Let me know if you have any thoughts or help. The doors two panel primed Mdf.


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## 6126 (May 9, 2010)

dukers said:


> I have to paint 20 new construction doors. I was wondering if anybody has any experience spraying doors. I have only used a brush or roller on doors in the past. But I was interested in streamlining the process but I was worried that spraying them might make it impossible to touch up the doors. Let me know if you have any thoughts or help. The doors two panel primed Mdf.


With the raised grain? If so, they will touch up fine. :thumbsup: 

I say go for it. I dont know if I have any pics on how I set up doors, but some others might. What product? Are you using oil or latex? A 410 fine finish is a good tip for a beginer.


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## kmp (Jan 30, 2011)

Do the doors have a fake wood grain or are they smooth? A wood grain door is easy to touch up a smooth door not so much.If you spay a smooth door and are worried about it you could spray them and carefully roll them off with a fine nap roller.Best thing is to tell the g.c. that they are a finished product and tell all the ya-hoo's in the other trade's to be carefull or you will back charge them to fix rhem.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

We've made up what we call "door stickers": each one is a 3-0 piece of 1x1, fastened to a 3-0 piece of 1x4. One of them is fastened with deck screws to the top and bottom of each door, with the 1x1 against the edge. They allow us to lean the doors against a wall or put them on horses to paint them. We can handle them while they are wet by holding onto the 1x4, so we can flip them to paint the other side or move them away from the spray area to dry. If they're being finished off site, we can transport them by stacking them, since the 1x4s keep the doors from touching.


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## 6126 (May 9, 2010)

I went through my photos and couldnt find any pics from door set up. I set them up in the center of a room on 2 1x2's at 90 degree angles to each other with 2 1x2s going across the top.


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## Toolnut (Nov 23, 2012)

The question I have is how are you planing to spray them airless or HVLP? Airless good if you have experience or after practice. HVLP not so good in my opinion. I guess I should have asked what paint you are using before I made those statements. Both of those are for if you are using semi or hi gloss. The reason is airless you can spray and go, With HVLP latex paint (again an assumption on my part) must be thinned and depending on your rig that could be quite a bit. And what I have found with the glossy is after thinning that much the results suffered quite a bit. Hope this makes sense.


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## Scotiadawg (Dec 5, 2011)

Toolnut said:


> The question I have is how are you planing to spray them airless or HVLP? Airless good if you have experience or after practice. HVLP not so good in my opinion. I guess I should have asked what paint you are using before I made those statements. Both of those are for if you are using semi or hi gloss. The reason is airless you can spray and go, With HVLP latex paint (again an assumption on my part) must be thinned and depending on your rig that could be quite a bit. And what I have found with the glossy is after thinning that much the results suffered quite a bit. Hope this makes sense.


I have yet had to thin paint to spray thru my HVLP :no:. even exterior latex goes thru like sh*t thru a cat:yes::thumbsup:. BTW I spray all doors in NC with airless and no problems with T/U using a fine foam mini roller.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

Scotiadawg said:


> I have yet had to thin paint to spray thru my HVLP :no:. even exterior latex goes thru like sh*t thru a cat:yes::thumbsup:. BTW I spray all doors in NC with airless and no problems with T/U using a fine foam mini roller.


SD, remind us, what's the HVLP rig that you're using? Thanks.


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## straight_lines (Oct 17, 2007)

Woodland said:


> I went through my photos and couldnt find any pics from door set up. I set them up in the center of a room on 2 1x2's at 90 degree angles to each other with 2 1x2s going across the top.


Pic from today we were spraying oil enamel. Two rooms full plus three rooms of trim package.


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## Scotiadawg (Dec 5, 2011)

Gough said:


> SD, remind us, what's the HVLP rig that you're using? Thanks.


sorry Titan


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

Scotiadawg said:


> sorry Titan


Do you have a model number handy? We've been using an older Titan for a long time and we're looking at a replacement.


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## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

Use a 212 ff tip from Graco.


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## Oden (Feb 8, 2012)

It's always faster to spray out doors on NC, well almost always. And it's nothing to roll off tight whole doors anyway if they get beat up. I usually roll of the doors that get damaged anyway whether they were sprayers or rolled. a Touchups is Kimda chimcey on doors IMO.


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## dukers (Aug 28, 2012)

Wow.

Thanks for all the input. The doors are smooth with no wood grain. I was going to use super white aura in semigloss. I was going to use my airless because I have never used the hvlp sprayers. I tried one once and had no luck but I think that was because I did not thin the paint properly. I was worried that my sprayer might be overkill for the job. Cheers.


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## Dave Mac (May 4, 2007)

plus you can spray the frame, I prefer to spray them in place and use 2 dummy hinges, get one of those fine finsh spray tips airless is great,


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## Damon T (Nov 22, 2008)

Gough said:


> Do you have a model number handy? We've been using an older Titan for a long time and we're looking at a replacement.


I've been happy with the Titan 115. Has 4&6 stage capability.


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## Damon T (Nov 22, 2008)

If I had 20 doors I would use my airless and a 4-10 ff tip over my hvlp. Faster. If its your first time make sure to practice on something first. And then when you shoot your first door, stop and wait 15-20 minutes. Make sure your application is good, and isn't going to sag on you, cuz there's nothing worse than shooting out 20 doors and then watching all the paint sag on them and chasing it with a brush or roller to pull out the sags, or have to come back later and sand the sags out of all the doors. Stop and just wait to make sure you're on the right track. Waiting 20 minutes in the beginning can save you hours and hours on the back end.


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## spraytech (Dec 27, 2012)

Take paint sticks and 1 in deck screw. Stand door up then position next door at a 45 degree angle use paint stick to fasten top corners of door by screwing down into top of doors. Then keep reversing as you go allowing you access to spray edges as well. Make sure to number each door w/ marker so you don't get em confused when time to hang.


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## Scotiadawg (Dec 5, 2011)

Gough said:


> Do you have a model number handy? We've been using an older Titan for a long time and we're looking at a replacement.


Without getting off myass to go look - 95 w/ 4 stage turbine.:thumbsup:


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## 6126 (May 9, 2010)

Zoomer said:


> Use a 212 ff tip from Graco.


212?  For doors? What do you recommend for spraying jambs? 109? :blink:


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## Oden (Feb 8, 2012)

Woodland said:


> 212?  For doors? What do you recommend for spraying jambs? 109? :blink:


.211 is a nice tip for hollow metal frames ( bucks we call em) when we were still using oil.
.311 for hollow metal doors again with the oil. I liked the oil.
I go all the way up to a .17 orifice for wood though using latex. .217 and .417 is fine. Wood is pretty forgiving. And them crap whatever they're made of doors, are more forgiving than that.


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