# HELP - Graco FinishPro 9.5 No matterial flow.



## Jotun (Oct 16, 2009)

Dear fellow painters. I'm in desperate need for advice / help. 

I got some kitchen cabinet doors / drawers and some furniture to spray. 
Insted of using one of my Airless sprayers, like I usually do. 
I wanted to try the Graco FinishPro 9.5 I've had for years, but not used. 
The problem is that it does not want to shoot paint without heavy thinning. 
Not even with the extra compressor pack. 
But it shoots water like a cannon.:blink:

The Graco FinishPro 9.5 is a 5 stage turbine
Its supposed to spray latex with no thinning with ease. 
The paint I'm trying use is a hybrid interiour paint, (Oil based with water as thinner.)
I'd guess the viscosity is probably 30/50% of regular latex. 
The recommended needle is 3 or 4 but I hardly get any material out at all. 
I've tried all needles from 3-6 but the only thing that shoots well is water. 

I'm getting 0.8 Bar on the pressure gauge with the Pro comp attached. 
And I think that's what the 9.5 is rated at and I also get plenty of air.
Everything seams OK. So what the f.... is wrong here  

Any tips to help me solve this mystery is most welcome and appreciated :notworthy: 

Kind regards.

Jotun


----------



## Jotun (Oct 16, 2009)

Hi guys. 

I called my Graco rep/service guy today and got an interesting reply that I want to share with you. 

I explained the problem like I wrote earlier. 

Rep: You got to thin the paint. 

Me: Its the 9.5 not 7.0 Its supposed to handle Latex without thinning, even without the add-on compressor for the remote Cup. 

Rep: You can't spray Latex and similar paints without heavy thinning. 

Me: But this is the 5 stage turbine and this is what Graco say it can do.

Rep: I attended a Graco FinishPro product demo in the US.
What they call latex is nothing like what we are using here in Norway. (Thin as piss )

Me: Well I'm not shooting latex but a ( Water/Oil based hybrid ) 
And the viscosity is quite good compared to "normal" Latex.
But even if I add 20% water it still doesn't shoot paint. 

Rep: You have to thin it more.

Me: I don't think this paint can handle 50/70% thinning, without ruining it. 

Rep: Use oil based paints that can take lots of thinning or check other water based that are thin to start with.

Me: So you're basically saying that it doesn't perform as advertised.

Rep: Yep.

Me: 


I'd like to add that I spray doors and windows with this paint all the time.
Using an airless 495/695 with 310 & 412 tips. And I get a perfect factory finish in one pass. At this thickness it flows nicely out and covers minor imperfections, it really is a win/win situation. Only time I consider giving it more than one coat ( Doors ) is when the substrate color is very dark and can bleed through. Or sometimes if the prep work underneath demands 2 coats. 

Now If I dilute the same paint to the level suggested by my Graco rep. 
I will have to spray the doors at least 2 coats perhaps even 3 instead of one. 
If I take into consideration how much slower I work with the turbine.
Its not worth it. 

I know of coerce that Airless and HVLP is two different things. 
But I was hoping my "BIG" 5 stage Graco FinishPro 9.5 would bridge the gap.

Check out this video. 
I'd say the max paint output I got was at around the nr 3 setting he's testing in the video. 




 
When I watch that video I'm thinking, that paint looks heavy, like latex. 
Not so drastically different from what we use over here. 
So I'm not so sure about this. Could it be that its not getting enough power, perhaps its only running 2-3 fans insted of 5? 

Anyway. If it turns out that its 100% OK and its simply how it performs. 
I'll just have to find a more suitable paint for my HVLP sprayer. 
But that will greatly limit the use I had in mind for it.


----------



## Mr Smith (Mar 11, 2016)

HVLP performance shooting acrylic paints is one of the industry's dirty little secrets. People who sell or service these sprayers LIE at every level just to get the sale. I mean, I bought a HVLP (with a compressor attached) and I could never get it dialed in to spray latex paints for the 10 years I had the unit.

To get it to atomize you have to reduce it by 50% and the spray pattern is usually terrible for large surfaces like doors. Mine was a 3 stage but I've read the same things about the 5 or 6 stage machines. Even Damon with his prized Titan 6 stage rarely uses it anymore.

It still angers me thinking about those people who sold me expensive HVLP accessories ( pressure pots etc) and lied about how good HVLP sprayers work with acrylics. At one point they sold me an extra hose to reduce the heat produced by the turbines. That didn't work...They made me feel small for not being able to get them to work properly. They STILL sell HVLP sprayers knowing that they do not work 100% well with modern coatings. I've seen them work on baseboards,but I'm talking about larger surfaces like doors. It just doesn't feather well if you have to do multiple passes, and it will assuredly run if you have to reduce the paint by 50%.

Don't get me wrong HVLP sprayers work well with oil based coatings and the fast dry Zylene based coatings.


----------



## canopainting (Feb 12, 2013)

I use a 5 stage HVLP to spray water based alkyd urethane on a door here and there or registers or metal casement windows but not cabinets. Mine works fine. I add a (little) water and use a 4 or 5 tip. Check to make sure the gun is clean and check the duck bill valve to make sure it isn't glued shut or stiff.


----------

