OK, I'm going to totally disagree with Scott. I have over 50 fruit trees of various kinds, as well as a dozen grape vines, 17 blueberry bushes, currents, gooseberries, kiwis, raspberries, blackberries, etc. Over the years, I've had MANY kinds of sprayers, various smaller tank kinds, including one on wheels, a Solo backpack sprayer, and a large, 50 gallon capacity gasoline powered sprayer with a trailer hitch to tow behind my lawnmower. Guess what, they're all a pain in the rear! Small tank sprayers are too small, heavy to lug, and have to be refilled many times to do all of the plants. The backpack sprayer is great if you're young, strong, and muscular, but it too doesn't have much capacity. The tow-behind one is big, noisy, takes a lot of maintenance, and the hose is perpetually tangled in the wheels, no matter how carefully you try to wind it every time you move the thing from tree to tree. I chucked the whole mess a few years back in favor of a little hose-end sprayer with a dial to adjust the application rates. I bought a couple of rolls of one inch black PVC water line, fittings, etc., and ran spiggots near all of my fruit and orchard areas in the yard. Then, I put hoses out there with quick-connects on the end. I now move quickly and effortlessly between areas and from tree to tree, carrying only my little one quart sized sprayer (which can make up to 64 gallons of spray from one fill of the jar, depending upon application rates of the chemical). The only other chore involved is winding and unwinding the hoses. I put in 15 spiggots in total, so the longest hose I need to have in any one spot is 100 feet, and most are only 50 feet. One of the best parts of this is the fact that it's totally silent, other then the sound of the spray coming out, so I can do it early in the morning when the wind is calm, something I certainly couldn't do with a gasoline powered sprayer towed behind a lawn tractor -- neighbors in my suburban area wouldn't appreciate that at six o'clock on a Sunday morning. I just sprayed yesterday -- did all of my trees in under an hour, and about half of that was spent fixing some hoses that had holes in them or bad fittings (I used about 8 hose menders!). And yes, there probably is one disadvantage in that the droplet size isn't nearly as fine as my tank sprayers can produce, so it does take more spray to compensate. I haven't missed my tank sprayers at all -- they're sitting the shed unwanted and unloved. I do actually use the smaller sprayers for Roundup, since they do give more control than a hose-end sprayer. Haven't used the big, gasoline tow behind sprayer for several years. As far as the brand, I prefer the 'Hudson Valley' hose-end sprayer with adjustable application-rate dial, because it has three spray patterns -- jet, shower, and fan. The Ortho sprayer only has one spray pattern, sort of half way between the shower and fan patterns, so it's not as versatile. Dennis

I really like my cheapo harbor freight HVLP . ive had great luck with it. did my kitchen cabinets w kelley moore gloss epic, sprayed my aggregate pool decking w wet look high gloss laquer , and have also sprayed various odd cabinets and fueniture pieces using it. i cant say that ive had ANY issues. i figure if it dies now, all the important projects are out of the way, and i more than got my 70.00 (!) dollars worth out of it. yes, the hose is a bit cumbersome and annoying, but the gun itself, is easy to clean, and has brass parts, so its solvent resistant, the unit is small enough and easy enough to move where you need it . i would use it to paint exterior doors, trim, fences, gates etc, but for the house body Id use an airless, for sure. hvlp is for fine finish. airless is for volume, generally speaking. But a professional can make ANYTHING work., for sure.

Thanks paintguy. These shelves are a low grade wood, pretty rough with knot holes, etc. but they had been painted before and I'd guess a semi-gloss or maybe high gloss. They still have a sheen just scratched, chipped and dinged. After spraying the shelf lightly about three times, they feel really rough rather than the smoothness that gloss paint gives, like it has raised the wood fibers and still has the dull/shiney spots. I'll sand it down and wipe it real good tomorrow before giving it a couple of new thin coats. If it's rough again, I assume it's something wrong with the sprayer or my technique. I know I'm doing very light coats because I haven't seen any spots where the paint has run or sagged. I really don't care about these shelves as they won't be seen, just want to get the technique and experience before I try to do a furniture piece or my 20+ louvered doors, lol! Those I do want to look really nice.

Make sure you cover the good stuff really, really well - especially edges and make sure there are no gaping seams - that spray'll get everywhere. Mostly if it's not too direct, it'll be mostly paint dust rather than stuck-on paint, but it's still hard to clean up - I've been pre-painting trim in my garage this week with my airless sprayer, and my brand-new sliding compound mitre saw now looks decidedly second-hand! Provided you fill the outlet boxes well you should be fine (the original painters of my house never covered them at all, so while I've been replacing switches and sockets, I've been seeing all-white wires in most of them - not good - you don't want paint getting into the marettes (the wire twist connectors) - you could consider a baggie or glad wrap over the wires, and the newspaper as well. The other thing to watch out for, when using plastic to mask, is that the paint won't really stick to the plastic masking and will flake off very easily and will stick to stuff - shoes etc and can get tracked around, and will stick like overspray to surfaces like flooring if you're not careful. Having said all that, I love my airless sprayer and wish we'd started painting our house when it was empty so I could have done more spraying and less rolling, the finish is hard to beat. Once you've undercoated, I'd recommend you start with spraying the ceilings, then probably plan to switch to rollers (my wagner airless comes with a roller attachment, they do take some of the work out of things but are clumsy in tight places) You can pre-paint your trim while you have the sprayer if you have the room and can store it carefully under cover til it's needed (and mind it doesn't stick together) - then after installing just touch up over the filled nail holes etc.... I'm not a professional by any means but these methods etc have worked well for me...