How To Clean A Clogged Wagner Paint Sprayer
If you’ve been trying to figure out how to use a paint sprayer on furniture but yours keeps clogging, you’re not alone. Knowing how to clean a clogged Wagner paint sprayer is the first step to smooth, stress free furniture painting.
Luckily, it’s easier than you might think. I’ll walk you through how to fix a clogged sprayer and keep it from clogging again so you don’t have to deal with these headaches every time you tackle a DIY project.
So your paint sprayer is clogged. Now, what do you do? Well, unfortunately, what I’m gonna tell you is not gonna make you the happiest, but you are going to need to stop what you’re doing.
Somewhere along the line, there is a clog in your HVLP gun, and it’s most likely because you did not take the necessary steps before putting paint in it. So now, this issue. We need to start back over from the beginning and make sure we get the steps done to prevent it.
Trust me, you do not want to skip these steps because doing so is why this issue is happening, and it is very simple, so stick around. You don’t want to miss these tips!
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Cleaning Your Wagner Paint Sprayer
If you have an HVLP gun, such as the Wagner FLEXiO 3500/595 or FLEXiO 5000, here is what you do. First, you’re going to empty out your container. Then, you’re going to rinse everything out – the container and the pickup tube.
Rinse all of that out, and then put warm, soapy water (a little tiny bit of Dawn dish soap) into your water. Put your container back with the pickup tube assembled like normal. Then, go outside or to a bucket or somewhere you can spray the water out.
This is going to remove what’s inside, which is where your sprayer is clogged. Spray that water out until it comes out clean. This might take a couple of times.
Usually, I just do it once, but if you’re really worried that the clog hasn’t come out, you can spray all of the water and then fill it up with some clean water and repeat that to make sure everything is nice and clean on the inside.
Once that’s done, we need to take apart the tip and clean it out and the nozzle to make sure there is nothing blocking the paint from coming out. There shouldn’t be anything blocking it here because we ran all this water through it, but we still need to make sure.
Use a little cleaning toothbrush or brush for the nozzle. Make sure everything is dry, and then put your sprayer back together. Learn more about what to use to clean paint sprayer in this post. We also have more detailed guides on how to clean a Wagner paint sprayer here and how to clean a Wagner FLEXiO sprayer here.
Preventing Future Clogs
Cleaning your HVLP gun is one thing, but wouldn’t it be great to avoid this issue altogether? These are the steps you need to take to make sure it does not happen again. If you experience Wagner paint sprayer spitting, learn why and how to fix it in this post.
Strain With a Filter
First, strain your paint through a filter. There are these cool little cone paper and mesh filters that you can just dispose of. They’re really cheap. This will catch any debris, dirt, or dried paint from your container.
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Even if your paint is brand new, there is still gooey gunk inside of it that can cause this issue. I put the filter onto my container and let the paint go through it.
Thin Thick Paints
The next thing to note is that, depending on your sprayer and how powerful it is, you may have to do some thinning. If you’re working with thick paints like latex, acrylic, or all-in-one paints, a lot of HVLP guns are not powerful enough to spray them, and they need to be thinned.
Even if they are powerful, they still aren’t powerful enough to spray thick paint in large amounts. Just a little will come out. So, you need to do some thinning. Here’s our blog posts on how to thin paint for a Wagner sprayer and how to thin paint for Wagner FLEXiO sprayer, depending on the model you have, but the gist is to dilute it out about 5%, 10%, or 20% with water or mineral spirits, depending on the type of paint you’re using.
Clean After Each Use
The next thing you need to know is that it is okay to leave most paints in the container until the end of the day you’re using it. Here’s our post for more answers on “How long can you leave paint in a Wagner sprayer?“
I always like to clean mine out before the end of the day. So, if I need to apply three coats, I make sure to get those done within that day so I only have to wash it out once.
In between coats, the tip of the sprayer will get dried paint on it, and that’s totally normal. You can just scratch that off the tip, and you can work like normal after that.
Those are my tips on how to clean a clogged Wagner paint sprayer. Aside from these, you can get more tips and tricks on how to unclog a paint sprayer here!
You need to make sure your sprayer is nice and clean and that you are filtering your paint to get rid of anything that could block it. Some sprayers need to have the paint thinned out because they’re not strong enough for these thick types of paint.
If you don’t want to do any thinning, you’ll need to look into an airless sprayer because those are able to apply latex and thick paints without being thinned.
More Paint Sprayer Tips
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