I just sprayed varnish for the first (and probably last) time ever. A little background, other than some oil based paint every once in a while, I don't spray oil based finishes. When I spray the paint it's outside, the mess inside when spraying oil based is more than i want to deal with. I will spray shellac indoors, but otherwise it's always waterborne stuff. Anyway, my wife has a redwood glider than I've been cleaning up and decided to finish. Using a marine spar varnish, I brushed on the first 2 coats. This was with the glider disassembled, and probably took 3-4 hours for each coat..along with muscle cramps, neck soreness, and a lot of complaining to myself. I waited about 10 days for that to sure enough to sand smooth, and reassemble the glider. Just sprayed on the 3 rd coat outside....now I'm hoping it sets up before the scattered showers arrive. But the finish went on well, I checked the viscosity and the McCloskey's didn't need thinning for the tip set I used. Plans are for one more coat and then it's done. Despite how well this worked I still have no plans to spray oil based finishes inside though...the stuff gets all over everything.

Edited July 12, 20206 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

Takes longer to cleanup than to paint the project.

An HVLP gun might have been handy, Fred. 

2 hours ago, Gene Howe said:

An HVLP gun might have been handy, Fred. 

Or a critter, uses a mason jar and is great for small to medium projects.  Clean up is simple.  You can keep the finish in the mason jar and use tomorrow for next coat.  Lots of options.  

 

1 hour ago, Gunny said:

Or a critter, uses a mason jar and is great for small to medium projects.  Clean up is simple.  You can keep the finish in the mason jar and use tomorrow for next coat.  Lots of options.  

 

A sign carving friend use the Critter exclusively. I think he has a couple or three. And, several jars. He says they're great for most finishing products. He has problems with water based stuff, though. 

3 minutes ago, Gene Howe said:

I think he has a couple or three. And, several jars.

I have two, one for oil based finish.  The second one is specifically set for paint so I do not have to thin it.  Takes some time but worth it to not have to reset each time.  For most projects I do this works fine and is easy clean up.  Have 12 mason jars in stock, cause ya can always use an extra.  

 

 

13 minutes ago, Gunny said:

I have two, one for oil based finish.  The second one is specifically set for paint so I do not have to thin it.  Takes some time but worth it to not have to reset each time.  For most projects I do this works fine and is easy clean up.  Have 12 mason jars in stock, cause ya can always use an extra.  

 

 

I use the critter for all oil base. Tried other sprayers and the cleanup was a real bummer. Found the critter and that problem was solved

I used an HVLP to do this. True, the cleanup takes longer. But the total job was maybe 45 minutes, with 10 minutes of that spraying the finish. Still a lot faster than brushing. There was probably 10 minutes of prep, the rest of the time was cleanup, this was about the same story as when I redid her teak rockers...only that was with oil based paint sprayed over hand brushed oil based primer. I have considered a Critter from time to time, but I spray so little oil based it just keeps getting passed over.

I use an HVLP for water-borne finishes.   I have a few of the HF $14 sprayers that I use for shellac, spray stains, and when I need to, lacquers.  All clean up fairly easily.

 

It depends on what I'm doing, but for large pieces or those with a lot of concave parts like chairs, my go-to is spray.  I think it took me several hours to do a couple of chairs with a brush, I can do 6 or so with a sprayer in about 20 minutes.

 

Just a word of warning -- when you spray an oil-based varnish, it atomizes, the overspray drifts around, lands, then cures.  When you spray a lacquer, w/b, or shellac, the overspray generally dries and by the time it lands, it's dust, or at least dry enough not to cause a problem.  If you value your cast iron table tool tables, your house siding, your car's finish or anything else in the vicinity, you won't spray varnish.