Diamondback

Before I painted my 339 I had only ever used spray cans for smaller projects. For the 339 I decided to paint it myself in a scale cammo scheme. I bought a compressor and gun at my local B & Q (Home depot in the US?) for £85 ($180) and decided to use latex house paint. I had the paint mixed up to the three colours I needed and also got some matt clear water based laquer for the clear coat. The paint cost me £50 in total. I sprayed the model in primer first using large cans of cellulose primer, I scuffed the model surfaces first with a Scotchbrite pad.

I experimented with thinning the paint with water and found that about 25% water with a gun pressure of 50 PSI seemed to work well. I practiced spraying on some scrap sheetrock, the paint has a pronounced "orange peel" look when first applied but dries quickly to a nice level matt finish, small imperfections can be easily and quickly
touched up either using the gun or with a good artist's brush. I then applied the decals before spraying the clear coat. I used 3M door shut masking tape to separate the cammo colours and this was very effective and easy to use.

The paint has proved to be reasonably durable in sevice and in my view has many advantages in that it is cheap, no breathing equipment is required,cleaning up only needs water, you can spray in fairly low damp temperatures. Refer to the thread "Spraying with emulsion paint" for more info.

If you intend to spray 2 pack type paints etc. you may need a better gun as Richard suggests but I certainly don't think you need to spend $500 on one. I was very pleased with the quality of finish my $70 gun produced.

Best regards

John