My Car Painting

Testing your Spray Gun’s Pattern Indeed, test-spraying is an extremely fruitful way of detecting problems with either air or paint flow, and should be carried out before every major paint job. Some painters also shoot a test pattern periodically during a long, thorough paint job, using a piece of masked paper tacked up on the wall of their workspace as a testing surface. If you are painting an entire car, you should, at a minimum, test the spray pattern every time you fill the paint cup. To test spray, set up your spray gun, filling the paint cup three-quarters of the way as usual, and connect the paint gun to the compressor. Set up a piece of clean paper or white cardboard in a vertical position, tacking it in place if necessary, at a height where you can spray it most conveniently – probably at about waist height, since holding your upper arm straight down at your side and your forearm out at right angles to your body is the most stable way to aim your paint gun. P...