According to the advertising hype on that sprayer it's supposed to spray unthinned paint paint. However sometimes products are over hyped. I'd call the manufacture of the sprayer and see what they recommend.

https://www.wagnerspraytech.com/products/paint-sprayers/flexio-4000-paint-sprayer/
At the top of this website is a 1 800 #. I'd call and ask them.

The reviews on the Krylon latex paint aren't very good.

https://www.krylon.com/products/colormaxx-quart/

 

Sprayers with the capability of spraying unthinned latex are usually in the realm of house painting, not furniture.

Thinning will affect the result, depending on the brand, latex can require huge amount of thinning. I've seen some people using windshield wiper fluid instead of water, but either way, I've had to thin latex up to 50% to get it to spray, and the results aren't great.

My suggestion is go get some Sherwinn Williams ProClassic. You won't have to thin it that much.

 

As to thinning latex, you can only go so far with water before things get jiggity. Floetrol is a good additive, but then you are really increasing the cost of materials versus buying a top shelf latex.

 

You can go up to 20% thinned with water. I would start with 10%, see how it sprays. Floetrol also good, but adds cost, like Splinty advised.

You can also use normal old dishsoap to thin latex or acrylic, bout the same quantity as floetrol, maybe a little less, plus a little water. I will ALWAYS add this to non-oil-base paint to minimize lapmarks, slow down dry-time. I know it sounds crazy, but it works! doesnt affect the integrity of the paint at all. Especially good for brush/trim work.

 

A little water goes a long way and +1 for Floetrol over water. It also has the benefit of increasing wet edge time.

 

Thanks for all the ideas guys.
I went with about 10% water to thin and set the pattern to as wide as it would go , then set the material flow to about 1/2 way and played with the air flow on some scrap and ended up using a setting of 9 out of 12 .
This gave me a pretty good coverage that was not to thick and took 2 coats with the second coat done about 30 min after the first.
The overall effect is about the same as using a really good quality low nap roller , not quite as smooth as I was looking for but overall it looks pretty good.

I may have to try the dish soap idea ( and yes it really sounds a bit crazy ) on some scrap wood later and see how it works out since I really don't think I want to spend the money on floetrol .

 

Might wanna try breakthrough from ppg. It lays down incredibly well and starts off thinner than your typical latex. Durability/blocking will be better as well.

 

When i was building models I thinned my acrylics with DNA it worked better than water. try a small amount and see what happens

 

I may have to try the dish soap idea ( and yes it really sounds a bit crazy ) on some scrap wood later and see how it works out since I really don t think I want to spend the money on floetrol .

- Richard

If you do try it, the color of the dishsoap wont affect the color of the paint at all, so dont worry about that. And, you should fold it into the paint easily until mixed in fairly well, then you can be more agressive, as you dont really want to create many bubbles. With brushwork, the bubbles, if you get them, arent a problem, but when rolling on paint, the bubbles can sometimes dry out as little rings in the finish.

 

When i was building models I thinned my acrylics with DNA it worked better than water. try a small amount and see what happens
- Karda

For acrylic paint, there are a lot of recipes you can use - I use mostly window cleaner (windex or generic), along with a few drops of glycerin. I've seen others who also add in the alcohol, but I didn't find it added much value to the mix and just increased the cost. You can get the window cleaner stuff really cheap at any number of places, and they sell the glycerin at CVS, Walgreens, etc…

I spray a lot of acrylic, but on a small scale using an airbrush, so it needs to be pretty thin.

Cheers,
Brad