15 gallon graco hopper

15

Sorry about that. I got a 15 gallon hopper with a used 3900 I bought last year. But, I did not get the suction tube extension. Can someone that has one tell me the length of the Graco extension? I think it is 1" pipe with a standard pipe coupler on one end. Also, someone posted in the past that they use large heavy duty (trash ?) bags as liners in their hopper. Because the temps are starting to drop and the job may not be ready for a few weeks, I may need to use solvent based paint rather than Hotline to get it to dry fast enough. Does anyone know of a readily available and affordable "poly" type bag (and source) that will stand up to solvent paint? Would like to use liner to minimize clean up and color change hassle. Thanks. Dave

We have tried the trash liners and they will hold up to oil base paints. We bought the heaviest contractors bag available. We only use the hopper on a larger mall we do every year. The problem with the liners is you can't power stir the paint. We leave paint on our machines most all season and use mostly latex so it needs stirring often. Our method is place a strainer on the bucket and cut a hole for the pickup tube to go through and just keep adding paint. We change the bucket and liner and rock guard every couple weeks and just restrain the paint. I don't know the size of the extension as we have the Titan hopper that doesn't need the extension but does need a spacer under it so won't rub the tires on a Graco. We found it easier to just clean the hopper than using a liner.

We have hoppers on all of our machines. I also keep two extra for machine changes. The liners dont really work. I also have tried every type of bag and finally gave up. Once a season we will drain the hopper and scrap down the sided to stop the build up. The extension is about 8 inches.

The big thicker trash bags will work, smear a little grease on the bottom of the hopper to glue the bag down, sometimes it tries to go up the tube. You can get pipe at HD for cheap and make a tube.

Here is the perfect example that one size just don't fit all. Jpanz probally does a lot of large jobs in a metropolitan area and has use for all big buckets and spares. We are in a area of smaller lots the average is 50 to 200 spaces with an occasional 500 and up lot and seldom need the big buckets but we use our machines almost every day so cleaning is a waste of time and paint. If you are working full time and striping only on weekends cleaning your machine after each job is probally a must. That is the great thing about this forum is there is something for everyone and lessons to be learned from almost everyone posting. We started out nine years ago buying the equipment from a friend who lost her driver license. I had never even watched a lot being striped let alone do one. I made every mistake in the book including laying out angled stalls at nine foot at the base lines and ending up with seven foot stalls and painting handicaps backwards. If I hadn't discovered this forum there is no doubt in my mind I wouldn't have survived in this industry. At first first we looked at it as it's only a parking lot (not art) on a wall. Now we strive to make every job as perfect as possable including getting of the LL and turning the tip so the angled lines on a hack out will meet the edge lines at the right angle. My point is while there are many different views and everything on this forum may not fit your method of operation today it is all very valuable information and may someday be just what is needed.

If I had to deal with trash bags and hoppers all day I would lose my mind. My legs are only good for an hr at a time. Changing the bucket stretches me out. I'd rather change buckets for 10 hrs then spend 1 hr breaking down a machine with a clog. My 2 cents. Tom