Will airless sprayers work with dope?

They put out a lot of paint really fast.  There are some light duty models for spraying stain and other such thin products, so yes, it will spray dope.  But, there will be a lot of it all at once, just right for spraying your deck. 

Airless sprayers give a much different pattern than our normal guns. A normal gun shoots a pattern that thins out at the edges. This lets us blend in the passes and get a level coat. An airless gun does not do this. It shoots an even coat of paint from one edge to the other. This results in layering at every pass. It means a lot of sanding to get a level surface or your paint blend will have to be perfect so it levels quickly and very well before the coat closes. ie, you ain't gonna make it.  What airless does really well is shoot really heavy paints. I use it on boat bottom paint where the paint is quite literally 50 to 75% solids... like copper solids. Its like mud compared to what you would try to shoot thru a regular gun. To get a racing quality finish its then wetsanded (yes, over your head... I hate painting boats!).  Where you have a surface with laps like the side of a house or on a deck it works out better because you have edges to shoot at. But shooting it on a horizontal surface is a pain. Without the feathering edge it gets thinner the further the surface is from the gun.

Also the comment about it putting on a lot of paint is very right. You would not get a light finish out of one of these type guns. But they are point and shoot. So not a lot to learn.

bob branch

Marcus
That orange peel comes from the force the paint is ejected at. NEVER put your finger in front of the orifice of an airless spray gun. It will shoot thru it.

bob branch