Graco Magnum 257025 Project Painter Plus Paint Sprayer

I bought this last November so I could apply a stain to the new fence on our property that was destroyed in a wind storm. But, the wind and rain kept us from doing so until these past two weeks. In total we have painted 620 linear feet of 6' high fence made up of drill pipe, 2x4s and 1x6" 6' tall. That's a lot of fence to be painting. We still have another 300 feet to go. Our neighbor finally decided to fix the adjoining fence so now we have more to do. This Graco Magnum made the job easy and quick compared to rolling. we put our little generator in the back of our work trailer and pulled it with the lawn tractor to the back fence. Worked beautifully. Priming was extremely easy. Painting was a delight, if it can be. Using the supplied tip of 512, it was a very nice wide pattern and covered a lot of fence. Took a bit to figure out how far back I needed to be to keep from causing runs, drips and errors. At first I was about to eclipse Pete Rose's record of runs, Hits, and errors. LOL. Then I learned that about 12"-15" works best in light winds of 5-8mph. Any higher its best to wait till there's low winds. But clean up, now that was easy. Prime it with some mineral sprits, Then with the small buck full of MS, start spraying into an empty bucket till the nozzle sprays clear. Disassemble the intake screen and wash off in the MS and blow it off. Then take the nozzle apart and clean it. With the nozzle and screen clean I just put them in the slots in the feet of the sprayer for safe keeping. So was it worth the investment? Well, ask me that question after I paint the fences again next year. Im sure Ill be smiling just as much. I won't be conning anyone to do the painting like Tom Sawyer did. But right now I'd say that this spray is worth every single penny. Painting isn't fun but it has been made 1000 times easier with this little gem.

Wow I have used better Graco sprayers in the $1000 dollar range and this is an amazing little sprayer! Most people don't follow directions and that is why they are getting the machine messed up or broken so fast! As long as you clean when done this machine will give you some amazing work. I have now painted three full size houses exteriors and no issues at all! Not one! Can't beat this for the price!

I made a little cart for this using some scrap wood and a mover's dolly that we already had. It holds the machine, a 2-gallon bucket of paint, and some tools and rags. Cut a hole in the top of your two-gallon bucket to slip the suction hose in so you don't have an open-top paint bucket sloshing around. Be sure to use the suction-hose filter. The machine is easy to use if you carefully read the extensive instructions several times beforehand. The extra set of paint-proof, water-proof laminated instructions is very nice. Then, fill up a bucket with clean water, and practice spraying with that. Get used to operating the power switch, priming it, PRESSURE RELIEF, locking the gun, and spraying with the water first. This will really help you to get more comfortable with the upcoming paint job, and you won't be fumbling around for the instructions. The little attachment on the end of the drain tube didn't make any sense - I removed mine. I sprayed 200 feet of five-foot-high concrete wall in two hours. It makes very little noise. It only runs when you are spraying. The spring in the gun handle is not overly stiff, and the gun itself operates very smoothly. They say you don't need to thin the paint, but the Behr Ultra Premium Exterior paint I used was so thick that it was close to a gel. I went ahead and thinned it with about 4-5 oz of filtered water per gallon of paint (they recommended a max of 8 oz per gallon). This made the paint a lot less like gel and much more like paint. Cleanup is made much easier by the fact you can use an included accessory to hook your garden hose into the suction tube and just let the water run through to flush it out. There is a small bottle of Pump Armor preservative included. One part of the directions say to dump the Pump Armor straight in the suction tube, but you will waste a lot this way. Instead, remove the suction tube and use the bottle of preservative and the included short vinyl tube to force the preservative up into the pump (instructions wrapped around the bottle). The negative things are the stiff hose, and the fact that the supplied gun does not have a swivel. No swivel between the gun and the stiff hose means you are constantly fighting with the hose a little. You can get pretty close to the coverage stated on the paint can with this thing. I figured I was getting 300 square feet per gallon, but I was painting very coarse pitted concrete, so painting a normal smooth wall should give you the full coverage of 400 square feet. I started off with the pressure set to full blast -- that was not necessary. Setting the pressure half to two-thirds of the way up used less paint, and produced less over-spray. The supplied tip is a 515, which is the biggest size you are supposed to use with this sprayer. It gives a fan that is 10-12" wide. The last amazing thing was that I didn't get any paint on me, my glasses, my shoes...anything! Cannot speak to reliability, but I cleaned the machine as well as I could and we will see what happens the next time I fire it up. Update 09-08-2023: Have now used it for three jobs without problems.

Unless you are someone like a pro painter that has used a lot of paint sprayers (I am not and have not) this thing is NOT intuitive to use, at all. If you are going to use it, plan on watching a boatload of UToob vids first, just to get your bearings on it. There are a boatload of steps and things that you will need to use it. Go to the Graco UToob site itself and look at all the set up/cleanup vids they have for this sprayer, if you don't believe me. You will NOT be having a simple painting experience they first time you use it. And if you only have a small room to do, like the room I started with, you will be wasting a lot of paint just setting it up and cleaning it out after use. You'd probably do better with your old roller and paint brushes. All that said... I do like having it and using it. After I did the first room, and got through the frustrations of set up, etc., I realized that once I actually started painting the paint went on more evenly than it would have with a roller or brush, and you can really move. I also did a ceiling with a lot of rafters that would have been a real pain in the neck with a brush and roller. Just don't think that you're going to be getting professional results the first time you use it. It's going to take some practice. You're also going to waste a fair amount of paint until you learn how to prime it and clean it efficiently. Would I still buy it, in hindsight? Yes. Do I love it? No.

Great item was very impressed with the quality being used. Had no problems with it. Sprayed a whole room and work great. Trim, ceiling and walls

I 100% recommend great quality, price and durability,

Works great, cleanup easy and overspray minimal. Spray pattern perfect and pressure. Used it painting the outside of my well house, workshop and garden shed with solid color stain. When it clogged followed directions and cleared it quickly. Easy to use and I used 1 gal cans. Next project is inside my house.

I had a couple of jobs to do, paint my basement before the floor got installed and paint the frame on my deck. My basement is pretty large. and my deck is 12 x 50. This thing is fast. I used a 5 gallon pail of paint and completed two coats of paint at about 30 minutes each. Clean up is straightforward and not a big deal if you just read the instructions. You would not want be painting a finished room unless you plan to do a very good job of installing drop cloths and masking any areas you don't want sprayed because the overspray is considerable. That said the walls looked great when done. The deck was just the frame and posts. The only problem with that is the spray nozzle is kind of wide and I could not get the right size nozzle at my local big box store. I'm not very patient so I just went ahead with the nozzle I had knowing that it would result in some extra overspray. I used 2 gallons of semi-transparent water based stain and lightly brushed at the end to even it out. It also came out great and cleanup was straightforward. Both jobs were done in a weekend at far less time than I would have taken with brushes and rollers. I highly recommend this if you need to paint large areas and overspray is not a big issue for you. I recommended this to a friend in another state who had a shed to paint. He also was really excited by the speed that he was able to complete that job in. This really take the drudge work out of painting. One thing I will point out that I don't recall seeing anyone else mention is that when working properly the pump cycles on and off. Initially I thought it was broken because the pump didn't keep running but then I just decided to spray and it worked with the pump cycling on and off about every second or so. It's very odd but works fine.

Excelente herramienta. Necesario usar overol tipo Tyvek y gafas para evitar salpicaduras. El rendimiento de la pintura es excelente (mayor a lo indicado por el fabricante) si se limpia y sella bien la pared.

The cleaning part can take some time and it is a messy job, but the work of the paint works amazing. For people who had some leak at where hose is attached to, make sure to tighten it little hard or until you dont see water dropping from the connection that will solve the leaking issue. The work of the paint sprayer is just amazing and im very impressed with the result!!!!!!! People dont buy crappy wagner crap or any kther paint sprayer thats less than 100 dollar on amazon which you will waste money down the drain. Invest in a good quality machine that will do you good for long time as long as you also take care of it. 5/5 recommend!!

excelente producto

This was a great product and did the job it was intended for, unfortunately it stopped working, however after contacting the sellar it was agreed that I could get it shipped back to them and they are giving me a full refund

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