# Wrench for HF HVLP gun?



## brokenknee (Sep 9, 2009)

Purchased the purple gun. It did not come with a wrench to take it a part. Instructions say it is a 19 mm that needs to be purchased separately. The 19 mm wrenches I have are all to thick. 

I looked on line at HF and other sites and was not able to locate one. I did see a debiss gun wrench however in the Q&A section someone specifically asked if it would fit a HF gun and the answer was no it was to thick. 

I know there are a lot of members with the same gun out there, so question is were did you get your wrench to take apart the nozzle?

Thanks all input is appreciated.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*It does so come with a wrench*

All the guns I have came with wrenches. It's useless without one. Go back to the store and echange it, but first look in the box for the wrench which should be included. I don't know when or IF they stopped supplying the wrench but mine came with them. There are 2 models of the purple gun, possibly one has the wrtench the other does not.... I donno. get the one with the wrench!

The accessories included does not state "wrench" .... duh.
http://www.harborfreight.com/20-oz-high-volume-low-pressure-gravity-feed-spray-gun-47016.html

If all else fails go back a buy the wrench, the gun was cheap enough.


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## brokenknee (Sep 9, 2009)

No store within a couple hundred miles that I am aware of. I ordered it online. I did look in the box again to make sure I did not miss it. It did come with a cleaning brush, but no wrench. I read the enclosed material and it said you had to purchase the wrench separately. Not a big deal, but have no idea where I can buy one.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

I have extra wrenches. I will send him one.


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## brokenknee (Sep 9, 2009)

@ Steve

Thank you, I sent you a pm with my address.


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## shoot summ (Feb 21, 2014)

Several options outside of the factory wrench, although sounds like you already have it covered.

I always have some cheap HF wrenches around, they can be ground down thickness wise, I make custom wrenches all the time...

Or you could just take some 1/8" flat bar/plate stock and make a wrench, 15-20 minutes with a hack saw and file and you would be good to go.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

When these harbor freight sprayers get to the point they need excessive cleaning it's time to through them away. With the cost of the solvents and your time it cheaper to throw them away. Often with excessive cleaning they still don't preform as well as a new one.


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## Oneal-Woodworking (Apr 14, 2013)

Steve Neul said:


> When these harbor freight sprayers get to the point they need excessive cleaning it's time to through them away. With the cost of the solvents and your time it cheaper to throw them away. Often with excessive cleaning they still don't preform as well as a new one.


I was at TSC the other day and stopped to look at the price on a small container of lacquer thinner...

Blew my mind how expensive it was. Guessing the price was so high due to buying in small quantities.

Completely agree with everything you said above. :yes:


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

OnealWoodworking said:


> I was at TSC the other day and stopped to look at the price on a small container of lacquer thinner...
> 
> Blew my mind how expensive it was. Guessing the price was so high due to buying in small quantities.
> 
> Completely agree with everything you said above. :yes:


I don't know, I went to Sherwin Williams for something and remembered I was low and had them get me a 5 gal can. When they rang it up I was stunned that it was $95.00 and I get a contractor discount. Regardless to say I don't ask for lacquer thinner there anymore.


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## brokenknee (Sep 9, 2009)

Steve Neul said:


> When these harbor freight sprayers get to the point they need excessive cleaning it's time to through them away. With the cost of the solvents and your time it cheaper to throw them away. Often with excessive cleaning they still don't preform as well as a new one.


I am new to spraying (really new, actually haven't even done it yet). I was under the impression you should do a complete cleaning after every spray. Is this not required? If not how often do you clean your gun?


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## Oneal-Woodworking (Apr 14, 2013)

brokenknee said:


> I am new to spraying (really new, actually haven't even done it yet). I was under the impression you should do a complete cleaning after every spray. Is this not required? If not how often do you clean your gun?


I think the point was that if it costs 20 bucks in thinner to clean a 10 dollar spray gun - You might should have just tossed the spray gun and bought a new one...


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## brokenknee (Sep 9, 2009)

OnealWoodworking said:


> I think the point was that if it costs 20 bucks in thinner to clean a 10 dollar spray gun - You might should have just tossed the spray gun and bought a new one...


OK, thanks that makes sense. To bad I still didn't work for the chemical company that I worked for as a young man. There is a HUGE markup on that stuff.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

brokenknee said:


> I am new to spraying (really new, actually haven't even done it yet). I was under the impression you should do a complete cleaning after every spray. Is this not required? If not how often do you clean your gun?


A lot depends on the finish you used. If for example you used clear lacquer in the gun and cleaned it right after using it you could put a half inch of lacquer thinner in the gun, shake it and spray that out and do it again it would be clean enough. I often leave lacquer in a gun for months at a time. If I needed the gun for something else it would need a more substantial cleaning. The sooner you clean a gun the better but I have 5 guns. I have one that I only use clear sealer in it, one I only use clear topcoat, one I use for wood stain, one for paint and the purple gun for catalyzed finishes. With catalyzed finishes a lot of them once they are mixed you have to use them and throw away what is left over. Therefore I use the purple gun because it is a gravity feed gun and you can use every drop. The rest of the guns are siphon feed and the last 1/8" in the cup is left over, it won't spray all of it. I keep all these guns to cut down on cleaning and also because once you use pigmented paint in a sprayer you can't seem to get it all out. I have the two guns that have had nothing but clear finishes in them for this reason. I started doing this when I used a sprayer for paint and then started using it for clear finishes. Ten years later after many extensive cleanings the gun spit a speck of the green paint out on the mahogany table I was finishing.

Most cup guns don't spray latex paint very good. You have to thin it so much to get it to spray it's more like colored water than paint. Anyway latex will dirty a gun worse than most anything. With this finish you really need to dismantle the gun and clean it. 

Oil based finishes are almost as bad to clean, the flatter the finish, the harder to clean. The paint that the gun spit on the mahogany table was Promar Exterior Alkyd Flat. It was a dead flat finish that had more of an appearance to latex once dry. 

One note about your purple gun. Be sure you keep the finish out of the threads on the cup. Just a little paint on the threads you'll think someone epoxyed the lid on.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Why would you need a wrench... Anything you need to clean regularly pops off without toos, and if you gum up the main chamber, well, its a $15 gun. Quicker to replace it


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*so not true*



epicfail48 said:


> Why would you need a wrench... Anything you need to clean regularly pops off without tools, and if you gum up the main chamber, well, its a $15 gun. Quicker to replace it


 An article on How to Spray Paint, suggests the following cleaning process:

http://www.howtospraypaint.org/content/basic-spray-gun-disassembly

I always spray clean lacquer thinner through my gun and then holding a cloth over the fluid cap, back flush it until I see bubbles in my solvent cup. Then run more solvent through it again. This will usually clean it pretty well. But before I switch to a different paint or finishing material, I take mine apart and soak the mixer in solvent and clean the small air passages. This is more important when using automotive epoxy 2 part finishes, which once they harden, it's near impossible to remove the paint from the internal orifices.


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## brokenknee (Sep 9, 2009)

Thanks for all the replies. 

So for the initial cleaning of the gun prior to using it all I would need to do is run some mineral spirits through it. I have some of that on hand, also have some acetone if that would work better. Or should I go pick up some lacquer thinner?


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Lacquer thinner would be better but acetone would be better than mineral spirits. You just need a stronger solvent than mineral spirits. Mineral spirits will leave a residue of the paint in the gun that will build and accumulate. You need something that cuts it completely. Acetone is just that, acetone. Lacquer thinner is a blend of different solvents including acetone which affect a more variety of substances in different paints

While we are on the subject of cleaning you might pick up a gun cleaning kit at harbor freight. It has the little brushes and picks to maintain your sprayer. As discussed in earlier posts the cost of solvents is a big part of cleaning a gun. It obviously costs more if you use fresh new thinner everytime you clean a gun. I keep an empty can I put used lacquer thinner in. When I have a sprayer that has something that takes a lot of cleaning like latex or enamel I start with the used thinner and spray that through the gun first. That usually gets the gun 90 percent clean and I pour that out and then put new clean thinner in the gun and spray that. Depending on how well it does I may repeat the clean thinner again.


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## roseredk (Feb 18, 2017)

Do you have one that we can buy. Can't use our gun without. Man at Harbor freight said no one had ever asked for one. Fat chance that is true. 
Thanks very much.


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## mjweaver (Mar 10, 2017)

Easiest fix for the gun is to spend a few minutes with a small file or a dremmel and grind off the shoulder above the notch on two opposite sides. Now a standard wrench will slip on and you can turn the piece out Mine worked out to take a sloppy 13/16 - but it did the job. When you toss the gun someday just save that piece in a drawer and put it on another purple gun )


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## xanderphillips (Jun 12, 2017)

*Bought 2, 1 had a wrench 1 without, but not right wrench!*

The wrench from the box that had one isn't the wrench I've seen in youtube videos. 

(The one where you can drop in pins to allow you to remove the larger back part of the nozzle assembly.)

Without that wrench and pins there's no way I can remove that large brass part without damaging the threads. 

Writing to HF to see if I can get them to send me one, but I doubt that they will.

Xanderphillips


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## Magic (Aug 13, 2018)

*Wrench Option*

I've started playing around with these guns. I picked up this wrench which fits. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C127XA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Sometimes cheap metric wrenches are thin enough they will work on a sprayer. In any case if a person had cheap wrenches they could grind the thickness down to work.


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## rmcbrideinrc (Dec 26, 2021)

Oneal-Woodworking said:


> I think the point was that if it costs 20 bucks in thinner to clean a 10 dollar spray gun - You might should have just tossed the spray gun and bought a new one...


Even if the gun did cost ten dollars, throwing it away maybe you break even(2 guns cost $20 +tax). The guns are $15 +tax so no, you should take the time to clean it after each spraying session and make it last. Buying a new gun, you have to clean out the packing lube anyway which uses more thinner so no, your point doesn't hold. Sorry, no offense meant.


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## GCTony (Apr 5, 2018)

So some of you have sold me on trying out one of those purple guns, like I need another spray gun but a guy can never have enough spray guns, right?

Regardless of what I spayed and how I cleaned my good guns. As a last step; I always run a few ounces of denatured alcohol through them before storage.


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