Ask the Expert Question-and-Answer Archive

by Ron Joseph

January, 2009

Spray Gun Gravity Feed Clear Coat is Webbing

Q. When spraying clear coat I have webs coming out of the gun, like spiderman. What can cause this? My clear coat is 1 part and reduced with thinners 1-1 ratio, brand is Cobra 2K, gun is not the expensive sort. I do have some good layers spraying out but then I get spiderwebs and can't seem to fix it, I've added more thinners and adjusted air and volume not sure whats going on. Can you help ??

A. I don't know what Cobra 2K is, but it seems to me that you might be adding too much fast-drying thinners to the paint and your atomizing air pressure might be too high. It is possible that the paint is drying while you are atomizing it, and this might be the cause of the spider webs. Do you need to add so much thinner? If you do, can you add a thinner that does not flash off so fast? Try applying the paint by using lower air atomizing pressure. I doubt that the problem has anything to do with the spray gun.

Regards,

Ron Joseph