Wasted $400 on a cheap paint gun and it cost me way more in rework

Bought a no-name HVLP gun off Amazon last year to save some cash, and that thing sprayed like a garden hose. Ended up with orange peel on a customer's Honda Civic that I had to sand down and respray completely. Total rework cost me about $700 in materials and 6 extra hours of labor. Anyone else learn the hard way that cheap tools just bite you in the wallet?

3 comments

3 Comments

reeseanderson10d ago

$400 is EXACTLY the sweet spot for a solid gun that'll last years. Those $1000+ Sata guns are just paying for the name at that point. Strip it down, clean it right, and your HVLP will shoot just as good as anything from the fancy catalogs.

joel28019d ago

Like you said, that cheap tool bit me in the wallet too. Buddy of mine bought a $50 spray gun and ended up painting his whole garage floor orange.

lucas15919d ago

@joel280 oh man, that garage floor story is brutal but hilarious. I did the same thing with a $30 drill that caught fire on the third hole I drilled into a stud. Took me three trips to the hardware store and a day of cussing to fix the mess that cheap tool left behind.