Dear Marcus,
Thin the rustoleum using the thinner recommended on the can, by trial and
error, until it just will spray satisfactorily. Instructions should be on
the can. Rustoleum will generally be pretty thick even when thinned to
label instructions, you can compensate to some extent by increasing air
pressure to 50psi or so.
Cleaning: If you have a "siphon" type gun, it will have an air inlet hole
to let air enter the paint container as paint leaves. To clean the spray
gun, put about an inch of thinner (use whatever thinner is appropriate for
the paint) in the cannister, screw or latch on the gun, cover the air
inlet hole with your finger, shake to rinse the inside of the container,
then remove your finger from the bleed hole and spray a bit of the thinner
through the gun into a rag. Use the sprayed rag to wipe the outside of
the gun, including the nozzle. Pour out any thinner that's left, wipe the
rim of the cannister where it seals to the gun, put an inch of fresh
thinner in, repeat all steps until the thinner you spray on the rag is
coming out clear. Remove the nozzle and check for any clogging--generally
it will be clean after 3 or 4 thinner changes. Try to resist the
temptation to clean small passages with wires, the wires may enlarge or
distort the passages.
Your best bet is to resist the temptation to put off cleaning the gun
until after dinner. Clean it as soon as you finish spraying, and you
won't have to do much scrubbing. Just spraying thinner through, wiping
the outside, and wiping the gasket on the paint container seal should do
it.
As a final step, I like to rinse the gun once with cheap lacquer thinner,
leaving about 1/2 inch of lacquer thinner in the paint container. Then I
remove the nozzle, and put it in the cannister, and tighten the cannister
to the gun. This keeps any small residues from hardening completely.
Then, before using the gun again, you pitch out the lacquer thinner, spray
a bit of air through the gun, and the thinner evaporates. This ensures
you don't have thinner residue in the gun that may be incompatible with
your next paint type.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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