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Maybe this will help

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

As I mentioned earlier when I pull my trigger half way back the regulator at the gun drops down to zero despite air coming out at a seemingly consistent pressure. The moment I let go, the needle jumps back up to reading the same as the regulator at the compressor. The adjustment knob on the side of the gun regulator only seems to do two things; turn air off, or let it go through 100%. There is obviously air coming through at various levels of pressure depending on how I set the compressor, so I think the 0 reading the regulator on my gun gives me when I hold the trigger down is inaccurate. Am I missing something or does it seem like this regulator doesn't work.

As an aside, when I hold the trigger down the compressor regulator drops 10psi. Does it seem safe to assume that if I'm getting the same reading at the gun as the compressor that the pressure at the gun is also dropping 10psi when the trigger is pulled?

This is starting to look better.

More thinning, slower and more consistent passes, works wonder.

I sure appreciate the patience and availability of everyone here.

Slick as glass. Congrats, you're on a roll!!

Looking better for sure. I'm thinking that you maybe don't have a regulator at the gun in your setup. I'll usually crank the one
onboard the compressor up 70- 80psi to ensure enough air volume and use the reg. on the gun to set my working pressure, the only
one that counts. When the trigger is pulled, that's your working presssure, as indicated by gun regulator gauge. Most will look something
like this.

This is what came with my gun. Is it possible that all it is, is a guage that reads the "standing pressure" or something and not actually a regulator? Seems kind of useless to me.

Looks like a gauge with on off valve(pinch valve maybe) and little filter. No regulator.... I think.

So my ultra thinned lacquer levelled itself out nicely, but not without some new hiccups.

I assume sanding between clear coats is okay, as the subsequent coats melt into the previous ones. But I've got some obvious blemishes that I need to deal with, and I'm not sure if I can just level sand them out of the way or if I need to go back to wood. It is only one coat of lacquer.

First there are a few air bubbles, I tried poking most of the big ones with a nail as the lacquer was setting up, but I missed a few.


Then there were a few drips, and some brush marks where I tried to move some lacquer that was pooling. In the past I've used a razor blade to scrape them level.



Then there was a little orange peel where the lacquer didn't flow, but I figure subsequent coats will fill those spots.


Lastly, the doozy. There was a drip that came through one of the control holes I assumed it was dry, touched it and it peeled off taking some of the color with it. The wood had been dyed, and I also added some dye to this coat as a toner, to even out the color. Can I drop fill this?

So, for those of you interested I never did adequately figure out my spray issues. But I think my biggest problem is a compressor that's on the small side, I found I'd get great even coverage at the beginning of a pass, but by the end of my pass all my pressure would be gone. Arrgh. This coupled with the overall steepish learning curve for spraying in general, waterborn lacquer specifically, a dusty garage, and my general overall impatience I've hung the spray gun up for the time being and settled on brushing the lacquer on with pretty great results. Take a look...

You might want to fill the pores on the next one.

Yeah I did end up filling the pores. Those other pictures are from a previous attempt. I sanded it all back to wood and started over after I took those.

This is encouraging. Your brushed finish turned out excellent. Probably a little more elbow grease required but no expensive noisy compressor. That's awesome! I've got to try it.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

That’s what I thought too. I was toughing my way through the spray learning curve because I figured that’s just what you have to do, but I was so frustrated. I will come back to it, once there aren’t learning curves every step of the way.

With brushing I found you definitely have to babysit it a little bit, especially any contoured parts and it’s not as efficient. I’d do a section wait a half hour, turn it on it’s side do another section, etc. But I didn’t find it to be to much more elbow grease, the water based lacquer I used, thinned appropriately, levelled itself out so nicely. There were a lot of air bubbles that would rise after brushing it on, but I used a trick a friend taught me, as the lacquer began to settle I’d hold my brush at 90 degrees to the surface and gently run it along the length of the piece, it would get rid of practically all the bubbles. And I was able to do it all in the comfort of my lesson studio/workspace. Put some tunes on, and putter away at other things while I’d wait for a surface to set up.