Cleaning Your Spray Gun

Maintaining your spray gun can go a long way towards making your paint job look neat and professional. In fact, the quality of your next paint job largely depends on how well you cleaned your equipment after the last job is complete. Leave enough time after you have completed spraying for clean up. You will find it is time well-spent.

Here are some simple instructions. Caution: Always clean up immediately after spraying to avoid paint drying inside the gun.

There are a lot of passages and chambers inside any spray gun that must be cleaned. After you are done spraying, pour the unused paint out of the spray gun pot and into a storage container. Next pour paint thinner into the reservoir. Caution: Use only the same type of thinner you used in spraying to avoid a blockage in the spray gun.

Screw the paint reservoir back onto the gun and shake thoroughly. Unscrew the pot, empty out the thinner and discard it. Pour additional new thinner into the pot. Do not immerse the spray gun in thinner as this may allow dirt to get inside; it may also cripple the gun's effectiveness by destroying the gaskets and seals.

Unscrew the air valve counter-clockwise. This will increase the rate of delivery. Now run air through the gun two or three times. This will thoroughly clean out all passageways. Remember that the thinner will still contain some paint, so point the gun away from vehicles or parts.

Take off the reservoir, cover the end cap with a rag and pull the trigger. This propels the thinner back into the container and dries out the suction tube.

Unscrew the air cap locking ring. Remove the air cap and clean the fluid tip beneath it.

To clean the spray gun threads, use a soft vinyl brush. This allows you to clean inside all of the threads. Clean the air cap thoroughly, too, using the brush to remove any paint buildup. Do not poke the jet with anything metallic. Doing so can change its shape, which can destroy the shape of the spray pattern.

Use your brush and carefully clean the fluid tip; it too helps determine spray quality.

Clean the sealing gasket inside the neck of the spray gun. Tip: have a spare gasket on hand because a broken or split gasket can cause leaks. Using your brush, also clean the threads in the neck of the spray gun and the feed pipe.

Add more thinner to the reservoir and spray through one more time. Lastly, wipe the reservoir inside and out with thinner.

Following these simple clean-up instructions will give you many years of service from your spray gun.