First quote/job woes..

Well the customer called and had to scrub this fridays job, we need to do it next week due to some special occasion at the church and the lot will be full.. Oh I got my stencils from Robert today, I have a question, what PSI and tip do u guys use for stencils? I tried the HC stencil at around 900-1000psi with a 217 and it seems to not have a good crisp line around the edges and the paint was runny, well that was mostly due to me using old house latex watered down.. just wonder what psi and stuff u do using SW quickdry waterborne..

For stencils, same as for lines, I start out low and turn the pressure up until I have a nice pattern. Sounds like you need to change paint. If you have to paint stencils with cheap runny house paint, do like you would if you were painting your truck with cheap runny spray cans. Several thin coats.

I plan on using straight out of the can SW hotline for the stencils, I was just wondering what psi U guys use so that the paint doesnt run underneath the stencils.

You just want to run the pressure high enough so that you get good atomization. Turn it up until you have even coverage from one side of the fan to the other. You won't have paint run under the stencil unless you get way to much paint on, or paint several symbols with the stencil without cleaning the build-up. You may want to use a smaller tip until you get the hang of it. That way you can paint slower without getting too much paint on. One nice even coat with Hotline will cover well without being so thick that it runs under the stencil.

Rich wrote on Dec 1, 2005:Go to #1

I was called by a local church to restripe their lot, the lines are just barely visable but I can see the outline still.. I quoted them a price of $85 for sixty six 4" lines 16' long, $40 for 4 24" stop bars, $90 for 6 HC stencils, $30 for 3 HC walkouts ,$20 for 2 arrows, and $10 for a 10X15 ped crosswalk so the total came out to be $275 roughly.. I dunno how that compares to the market here in the Southeast, im in FL.. Anyway she called me back and said they wanted to know how I prepared the lot for being restriped? I told her well I usually blow off loose dirt and debris with blower and the mud and stuff I brush off with water and let dry.. I am totally new to this and this is my first job and I am having soooo many 2nd thoughts about this.. I ordered a starter set of stencils from Robert and am hoping I didnt waste my $$ and back out of doin this line of work!?!? Any help would be appreiciated. Rich

Well I did my 1st job today.. everything went ok , there were a couple things like a few of the stall starts were off by a couple inches or so, and the last HC walkout I messed up on the bottom of it and had to try to fix it, so the line was like 6" instead of 4" when i got thru with it but it didnt look too bad.. Man now I know what u guys go thru day after day.. its not too bad but the worst part is color changing and cleanup... I also had a couple lines that were covered with some wet dirt that I swept off and let dry some then blew with blower.. I hope it sticks and if not then Ill have to go back and wash off the lines, let it dry overnite and then redo with roller and some maskin tape I Hope to get a couple more jobs under my belt before year end.. thank God the weather is only in the 60s today in FL, almost year round striping..

paint all lines yellow and roll on the handi cap. charge 75 for a paint change if they want blue lines.

SO your sayin use a 4" roller for the blue lines and just do the normal stalls in white or yellow dependin on what they had or wanted.. I might do that next time.. I hateeeeeeeeeeeee color changes..!!!Clean up is a pain in my hemmoriod too but I know it has to be done, but every way I can avoid changin colors Ill do it!! Rich

Yes color change is a pain, but the more you do it the faster it will go, especially with latex. I think BandE meant to roll on the blue square of the handicap, not the lines. Unless you tape the lines its real hard to get them to look as good as when they are sprayed. It's probably worth the color change. Are blue lines at the handicap required in FL?. If they are not, I never could understand why someone would paint blue lines. You can't see them as good, they don't look as good, and it requires a color change. If they are not required, and if they are faded, I either "tell" the customer they want white lines or just restripe them white without asking, but blue lines are not required here.

I never paint blue lines unless they ask,we paint everything yellow or white(not much white here), Lots of guys around here even paint the handi cap man yellow. I have a extra machine to spray blue and white handi cap down I made. I would just roll your handi cap man down in blue if the blue lines are not required and the customer doesn't instist they want blue, if we have to paint change I add on 75 dollars for that. If you have to make a handi cap with blue back round roll down the blue when you get there and it should be ready to roll the white man down before you are done striping.

Before I had the luxury of multiple machines, I did all my striping with yellow in the LL3900, masked off and rolled the blue squares and did all the white stencil work with an aerosol can. Of course if the stripes were white, I didn't need the "can". If I remember right, you could get 10+ stencils out of a single can. Some may say this isn't very cost effective, but if your doing small jobs, it's the way to go. Even at $5 a can, that's beats $50-$75 for a 5Gallon can of white you may or may not use. I'd always do fire lanes last, since the red is a dominant color. That way you don't end up with pink/orange stripes. Never happened to me, but I've seen it. Fortunately, I've never had to paint those blue crosswalks. Although I've removed/painted over a few. Total nonsense. Lastly, DO NOT USE A ROLLER FOR STRIPING!

Seeems we are being requested to paint more blue cross walks and ADA stripes....about one per month. Eventhough we have a dedicated blue machine, we discourage blue stripes! They aren't visible on dark rainy nights! After all, we're trying to aid the infirmed right? I respectfully disagree that using latex is faster for color change than alkyd. There are methods that facilitate color change with almost no waste but involves running two guns and hoses.....

Ken is right. There are methods that facilitate color change with no waste. It is called a dedicated paint pot with an air machine. I just had to throw that in.

My favorite method for color change is to start the other machine. Guaranteed to be the fastest method out there. Only thing that slows me down is switching that darn linedriver over! I guess some of us aren't as lucky as Ken to have four lazyliners WOW!

Well since Im starting out and only have my LL3 3900 Ill just do all my white or yellow stalls then do blue at the end, flush themachine a lil bit with water on site then go back home and do a thourogh cleaninin and flushing.. thats what I did last time and it seems to work well.. Does anyone know how dark of blue the SW quickdry waterborne is? I had them tint a gal of quickdry white to make it blue and it came out a lil darker then light blue but not dark like navy or bluejeans blue..lol Just wondering if I should buy 5s of white and have em tint it blue or jus spend the xtra $$ for the true HC blue..

I have never been successful in getting a machine to work well for a week or so after switching from alkyd to latex (or vice versa).

Stripes is right. We have had the same problem in switching machines from latex to alkyd or vice versa. The only way it has worked out alright is after using latex, run mek or xylene through the system, then run paint thinner for a good amount of time after that. Overall it is just too time consuming and expensive to be switching out, just try to get another machine that you can dedicate solely to latex or vice versa. In the long run it will definitely be to your advantage. I bought a used Titan from a guy who went out of business for less than $ 500.00. That is our dedicated latex machine. I know, I know, should have bought another graco, but the price was right.

Well all I am using now is strickly latex, SW hotline quick dry waterbased.. I am pretty satisfied with it and dont see a reason or advantage for using oil based, plus oil based is alot more expensive!!

I have a Graco 3900 with a fattrack front wheel. Lets work out a trade.

Stripes, the Titan I got a hold of is a small 3100. I am sure you are looking for the hydraulic machines. How much do you want for the 3900?

I've plans to convert the 3900 to a two wheel striper. I would consider trading it for a for real machine that has hydraulics . You're right, the 3100 doesn't qualify.