Touch-up / Detail spray guns

Having a small 3/4 HP compressor limited my choices for spray equipment so after doing a little research I decided on the Badger 400 Touch-Up gun. There are a bunch of inexpensive TU guns on the market available anywhere from Harbor Freight to your local lumber yard but thinking you get what you pay for I decided on the Badger. The best price I found on the net was from http://www.dixieart.com/ at $74.95 so I ordered the gun and a 10 foot hose. Dixie Art ships fast and 4 days later I had the gun in hand.

This being my first experience with spray equipment I was a little disappointed in the manual that came with the gun. It really doesn't say a whole lot and assumes the owner already knows most of the in's and out's of spray painting. Might as well get my feet wet so loaded the cup with Brodak clear thinned 50/50, set the air at 30 PSI, aimed it at a cardboard box and pressed the trigger. Nothing! all it did was blow air. After messing with it for a while and adding more thinner it started spraying. Found out later that part of the reason it didn't work was because spray guns are shipped with an anticorrosive agent and you need to spray straight thinner through them first to clean this stuff out. This is a well made spray gun and now that I know a little more about the process it works as advertised. I was even able to spray Brodak primer thinned 50/50 which is pretty thick.

The second part of the spray venture...

Was walking through the local Sutherlands lumber store the other day and spotted an Ex-Cell Touch-Up gun priced at $30.00. Remembering a suggestion on this board that it is a good idea to have a spray gun dedicated to clear I said what the heck and bought the thing. Wow! this gun came with a fairly good manual, a cleaning kit and a few common replacement parts. The Badger came with nothing but a manual. This gun is made by DeVilbiss and from what I can see is as well made as the Badger. I cleaned out the anticorrosive agent (as the book told me to) and used it to spray silver on the Legacy. Other than the controls and trigger being in a different location I don't see 10c worth of difference between it and the Badger. If you are in the market for a spray gun do not overlook the many inexpensive spray guns available, you may find a jewel.

Campbell-Hausfeld also sells a touch-up gun for around $30-40 that looks well made, and I saw one in Sears, so maybe those would be a good substitute for the more expensive tools, for modeling uses.

I picked up a CH touch up gun at Lowes for 40.00. Well, actually I did pay for it. Picked up sounds a little fishy.

Hi Bob I bought a Badger 400 about eight years ago paid $100 but it came with all three tips & needles.I never used it much as all dope needed to be thinned with three parts thinner. They are a very well built gun maybe one of the best.T shirt guys use them for thousands of hours with no trouble.I have gone to a new style of painting that only uses one ounce of color and ten ounces of thinner and now I use the gun all the time. The cheap touch up gun by H Freight works very well also and it will flow Sig straight.
Ed Ruane

In the 2003 catalog for Walthers, the toy train people, the Badger model 400 costs:$138.00!! At Lowes I paid 40.00 for my CH DH5500 and at Wal-mart I paid 29.95. Direct from CH you can get a rebuilt, same as new for 17.00.