Valve Release
Paint or corrosion can often cause the ball in the lower end of the pump valve to stick in place and stop progress. Typically, the fix for this problem is to tap the valve housing with a hammer to shock the ball loose. The Titan Impact 440, Titan XT 420, and Wagner pump (shown), however, have small plunge levers that free the ball with a little push – no hammering on delicate parts required.
Two of these three models also share another interesting feature, an auto-oiler. Pump seals, called packings, require a few drops of oil after each use. Most tools have a small opening at the top of piston housing to drip oil into (except for the Milwaukee, which has no provision for oiling seals at all), but on the Titan Impact 440 and Wagner tools, an oil tank in the top of the pump housing holds a good supply of oil, which is dispensed as needed by pushing a button. A window lets you keep an eye on the oil level.
Spray Gun
Airless spray guns are like saw blades: A pro will often fit his favorite type to a new machine, while occasional users will just use the one that comes with the tool. Guns and hoses for these units all share a universal fit, so you could upgrade a lesser pump with a premium gun – but putting that $150 to $200 into a better unit that comes with a better gun is a wiser investment, especially at the price level of the tools in our test.
The Titan LX80II gun (shown) that comes with the Titan Impact 440 exemplifies everything we like in a gun. Four-finger triggers are preferable to two-finger versions for fighting fatigue (premium guns can be fitted with either kind of trigger). And only the lightest possible trigger pressure should be required. We like the Impact 440’s all-metal safety switch parts, the hose swivel fitting, and the wide-open tip guard that doesn’t collect paint and drip it back into the spray. This is a really big consideration because when a dollop of paint drops into the spray mist, it leaves a string of paint on the finished surface that the painter must wipe off and respray. To deal with a narrow guard that does this, the painter must routinely stop and wipe it with a rag. For this reason painters will sometimes just cut the guard off the gun.
The exploded view of the gun reveals the filter inside the handle. On all the guns except the Milwaukee and Wagner, the handle opens without tools, making it easy to access and clean. This filter is the final line of defense – after the suction tube screen and the pump filter – against a clogged tip. New filters cost about $5, and different versions are available for use with different coatings and tip sizes.
The replaceable tip is the T-shaped component visible at the top left, with the tip housing and guard assembly located just below. Tips come in a range of sizes and go by a common designation consisting of three numbers. Doubling the first number gives you the spray width in inches with the tip held one foot away from the wall; the next two numbers are the tip’s orifice size in thousands of an inch. That means a common 517 tip – which is what our tester uses for most latex spraying – has a .017-inch hole and a useful spray width of 10 inches. The tips are called reversible because they can be rotated 180 degrees to blast out clogs; they can’t deliver paint in both directions. The industry-standard tips for shooting latex paint go by the designation RAC 5, and the guns that come with most of our pumps fit these standard tips. The two higher-end Graco units ship with Graco’s exclusive RAC X tips, but we swapped out the housing and tip so our painter could use his favored tips with each tool in the test. Graco claims that its pricey new tips last 60 percent longer than standard tips, but according to our painter and the local paint store, they have yet to be enthusiastically adopted by the trade.
Standard tips cost about $30 each and last for 15 to 40 gallons or so, depending on the abrasiveness of the clays and mineral pigments in the paint. As a tip wears, the fan shape of the spray pattern loses definition and eventually becomes inefficient. A blown-out tip also requires more output from the pump, which is why we specified tools that can shoot at least a .019-inch tip, even though .017-inch tips are more common.
HVLP Function
The Milwaukee unit has the distinction of combining a light-duty airless paint sprayer with a light-duty HVLP (high-volume low-pressure) finish sprayer. Typically used for fine finishes on cabinetry, trim, and other woodwork, this air-assisted sprayer introduces a soft blast of air at only a few psi to the spray mist to further atomize the finish being sprayed. Because of its multi-use nature, the unit has a combination gun, and its paint hose is limited to the length of its air hose – a very short 25 feet, in this case. The box at the bottom of the tool is the air turbine, which works like a little vacuum cleaner motor by moving a lot of air without building much pressure. As this was a test based on house-painting abilities, the utility of this feature was not fully explored.
Rolling Cart
Most small pumps purchased by professional painters are “stand” or “skid” models, situated on short frames just off the ground instead of on wheeled carts like the tools we tested. In fact, it is estimated that these small-stand models outsell the cart versions by as much as 20 to 1. Since the less-expensive models we tested are only available on wheeled carts, we tested them all in that configuration – but we also included the stand-model prices in our spec chart. According to manufacturers, painters buy the more compact versions to fit into smaller work vehicles. And painters with spare hoses around may find it easier to add more hose within the pump’s capacity rather than move the pump once it’s connected to the paint.
But guys who buy a single unit with 50 feet of hose – like the models in our test (except for the Milwaukee, which only comes with 25 feet) – may find it advantageous to be able to roll the unit around the house when it’s connected to a 5-gallon bucket of paint. We also like having the cart when we’re hauling the unit around a large yard or bouncing it upstairs to an attic remodel. If you have the vehicle and storage space, we say a cart is a worthwhile luxury. The suction tube always sits just right in the paint bucket, and the cart gives you a good place to coil your hose around and keep everything together.
We did a test to see how well a cart would hold and transport a 5-gallon bucket of paint, and the results were surprising for our otherwise top-rated units. With the Airlessco, the bucket bail hangs up on the prime/paint switch and pump filter instead of being supported by the frame below. Bending the bail can help some. For all three Graco units, the weight of the paint bucket rests on the filter screen at the end of the suction tubes instead of on something structural. The same goes for the Titan Advantage 400. Only the Titan Impact 440 (shown) holds the bucket securely between its sturdy legs as intended. The Titan XT420 and Wagner pumps support the bucket with their bottom leg bracket and storage caddy respectively, and the Milwaukee balances the bucket between its flat platform and the back of its motor housing. Based on our disappointing findings, we advise that you go easy when rolling around a full bucket of paint, and don’t tilt the cart back any further than you have to.
In general, the sliding-handle carts offered great tilting leverage and rolling control when up and a very compact silhouette when down. Unfortunately, none of the handles lock in the down position, so anytime you lift the frame, the handle snaps fully up. This made them harder to load into the back of a truck. The fixed-height cart models don’t have any wiggle or flex, but make sure they aren’t too tall for your rig. As for wheels, the skinny plastic ones on the Milwaukee and the Wagner are no fun to roll around on bumpy surfaces; the pneumatics of the Airlessco provide the least rolling resistance; and the foam-filled, flat-free rubber tires on all the rest were our tester’s favorite because they require no maintenance.
Thanks to Sherwin-Williams for providing the ProGreen 200 paint and spray tips used in some of our testing (800-524-5979, www.sherwin-williams.com).