I Need Paint Advice. Patty?

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2dogs

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I have more than a mile of trees above the cut slope of a road to mark. I'm currently using Rudd crud with the straight stream nozzle but it doesn't reach even the top of the slope much less the trees. Cody has a paintball gun (originally bought for shooting trash bears in camp) I'm going to try but I think I want a Nelson or similar style of paint gun. Will one of these mark trees 10-12' away?

BTW I think my right index finger is permanently blue and every truck door handle has blue on it.

Oops forgot to ask where should I buy a paint gun? It appears Bailey's doesn't sell them plus I don't want to pay their shipping charge.
 
Nelson paint gun, black nozzle. Silver nozzles have the smallest hole and therefore widest spray/highest resistance, brass nozzles the medium, and black nozzles have the largest hole and lowest resistance. Make sure you get a gun with the long 3-finger trigger, whether plastic or cast aluminum. Don't buy used because they just changed the casting for the handle and several of the pickup tubes are or will soon be unavailable for the older models. Give me a yell if you have any questions. Also -- I have all of the Nelson contact information at work and will PM it to you tomorrow. Their staff are excellent.
 
What about an old chief fire can, 1 gal of blue paint, should mark a fair amount of trees up to and including anything in between to about 30'

or one of them pump up weed sprayer deals and just modify the business end to shoot a stream... I can neither confirm nor deny the effectiveness of this method with gasoline...

Alas I think Miss P has permanently vacated this sight, on account of douche bags...
 
madhatte said:
Nelson paint gun, black nozzle. Silver nozzles have the smallest hole and therefore widest spray/highest resistance, brass nozzles the medium, and black nozzles have the largest hole and lowest resistance. Make sure you get a gun with the long 3-finger trigger, whether plastic or cast aluminum. Don't buy used because they just changed the casting for the handle and several of the pickup tubes are or will soon be unavailable for the older models. Give me a yell if you have any questions. Also -- I have all of the Nelson contact information at work and will PM it to you tomorrow. Their staff are excellent.
Click to expand...
Where would you recommend I buy a Nelson gun?
 
northmanlogging said:
What about an old chief fire can, 1 gal of blue paint, should mark a fair amount of trees up to and including anything in between to about 30'

or one of them pump up weed sprayer deals and just modify the business end to shoot a stream... I can neither confirm nor deny the effectiveness of this method with gasoline...

Alas I think Miss P has permanently vacated this sight, on account of douche bags...
Click to expand...
Patty is a wonderful person. Smart with a boat load of real world experience too. Darn shame she left.
 
The bat light went on. I see I am needed.

I've marked with 3 different brands of guns. This one is my all time favorite. https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/products.php?mi=12001&itemnum=55585&title=Trecoder® Spot Gun with Reversible Nozzle

Reasons? The Nelson paint gun has lots and lots of little parts. The Treecoder is perfect for those of us who drop parts or are not mechanically inclined. Even I could take it apart and put it together out in the woods. The Treecoders seemed to have more oooomph and a good spray pattern. I was introduced to this brand by the marking crew in AZ and they also thought that the Treecoders were gentler to work with--carpal tunnel can be a problem for markers. After using one, I never wanted to go back to the Nelsons.

IF you get a treecoder, it may still come with a screen in the bottom. Rip out the screen and it will chew through paint very well. They don't seem to clog as much as the Nelson guns.

If you are using lumpy paint, put a little rock in the can and shake it up. The rock can break up some of the clumpy stuff.

I also tried an el cheapo brand (can't remember) and it did not last a week.

Here is my old trusty treecoder.

Old Tree Killer0001.jpg
 
slowp said:
The bat light went on. I see I am needed.

I've marked with 3 different brands of guns. This one is my all time favorite. https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/products.php?mi=12001&itemnum=55585&title=Trecoder® Spot Gun with Reversible Nozzle

Reasons? The Nelson paint gun has lots and lots of little parts. The Treecoder is perfect for those of us who drop parts or are not mechanically inclined. Even I could take it apart and put it together out in the woods. The Treecoders seemed to have more oooomph and a good spray pattern. I was introduced to this brand by the marking crew in AZ and they also thought that the Treecoders were gentler to work with--carpal tunnel can be a problem for markers. After using one, I never wanted to go back to the Nelsons.

IF you get a treecoder, it may still come with a screen in the bottom. Rip out the screen and it will chew through paint very well. They don't seem to clog as much as the Nelson guns.

If you are using lumpy paint, put a little rock in the can and shake it up. The rock can break up some of the clumpy stuff.

I also tried an el cheapo brand (can't remember) and it did not last a week.

Here is my old trusty treecoder.

View attachment 624884
Click to expand...

Yay Patty is here. Now the party can start!

So what about the paint itself? Should I buy a certain brand? How long should I shake it and do I need to keep it warm? Do I clean the gun every night or will it go a week between cleanings? Will the gun leak paint when not in use like between parking spots? Do I need to keep spare parts?

How is Demon Dog? Playing the fiddle much?
 
On paint, I'll have to go back to the dark ages. My former employer began having their own paint made with the secret ingredients around 1984. Before that, we lowly timber markers liked the Nelson paint the best. At that time, the red and yellow contained lead so even more fun! The Southern Coatings made some crew members get high or dizzy. We ditched a few cases of that stuff, although one guy liked it because he felt like he was floating all day. Niles paint was not too bad and I am thinking it was one of the contractors making the super secret paint. Southern Coatings also had that contract at times and there were still reports of people getting high from it.

We called Rudd paint, Rudd Crud because at least for the aerosols, it seemed to clog up.

It depends how old the paint is on how long to shake it. The AZ crew would put a case of paint in the box on a regular paint shaker and let it go for a while. That was first thing in the morning. Then of course, you do the manual shake before putting it on the gun.

We cleaned our paint guns once a week and stored them in "solvent" when not in use. Later, the super secret paint became water based and we stored our guns in a can of water (squirting it through the gun). I never really cleaned my gun--just squirted it until the water came out instead of paint. No, the gun shouldn't leak --note the word shouldn't. Keep it in an upright position at all times whilst in transit. Yes keep some spare parts. I believe you can order a set of parts along with the gun. The most likely to lose part is the little beebee that goes in the bottom part. Get extra nozzles too and carry one with you.

The Demon Dog is about to have a major life change. We are moving into civilization to a town that has 4 stoplights and stores that sell fresher veggies. She doesn't know that so is still happy and dancing around. No, I have been neglecting the fiddle for the past month. I've been packing and getting ready for the move to civilization. We have 3 more nights to go in an almost empty house. Then we head north, into the snow. Maybe I'll try out for the symphony in the fall. They did say all you have to do is show up in October.
 
The black nozzle and 3-finger trigger available for the newer Nelsons address those problems you mention very well. The Treecoder in my experience, builds less pressure and throws the paint a shorter distance. Nelsons are definitely fussier if you have to work on them, but so long as you store them in solvent after use and spray the paint clear every time you put them in the solvent, they're usually good for a full season of marking between rebuilds. We use acetone as a solvent. I can do a full rebuild in about 20 minutes so even that's not a big deal.

Leaks happen. Agreed, keep 'em upright. There's an o-ring that is supposed to prevent it but it's just butted up against a plate and held by a circlip. It's not a perfect seal, and even if it was, the actuating rod has no such attention paid to it and just passes through a brass bushing which serves more to align than to seal.

We use Nelson paint exclusively. It is shelf stable for about a year before the pigment starts to get clumpy. We rotate the cases on a "first in, first out" basis to prevent this. I've used Rudd in the past, as well as a third brand whose name I forget, but the Nelson is the best we can get through our supply chain. Also, as mentioned before, the Nelson folks are a dream to work with as far as sales and service go.

As for spare parts -- I keep enough for about a dozen full rebuilds, and inventory and replace before every summer. We break stuff. Along with extra nozzles, keep the poker/cap thingy. It keeps the nozzle clear when not in use. A bonus with the Nelson design is that you can clear most clogged nozzles by just flipping it over, but if that doesn't work the poker will clear just about anything you can throw at it.

Your rock trick is solid. So is the paint shaker.
 
Here is what my findings are.

Nelson is the standard. It has been so for eons. If you get a good gun and will be using new paint, you'll be fine. I did find that the Treecoder would handle the cloggy old paint that "had to be used up" better. I hate having to stop and turn a nozzle around or unclog a nozzle and did that less with the Treecoder. I didn't notice a distance difference and to me, the treecoder had a better spray pattern. They just seemed more uniform--no bad gun good gun like the Nelsons in storage that we picked from. It's kind of like a Husky vs Stihl decision. I became a Treecoder fan.

Note the old paint that had to be used up statement. The FS had cases and cases of old paint. That's what we had to use so a gun that would chew through the clogs was a good thing. Eventually, word came down to gather up and ship off the ancient paint. I can't remember if it was because it was deemed to be the dead baby paint or just because it didn't flow through a paint gun very well anymore.

Dead baby paint was what a logger called our old paint. There was a study done of marking crew members and birth defects and miscarriages were found to be of a higher incidence in the timber marking population. That's why a water based paint was formulated.
 
slowp said:
There was a study done of marking crew members and birth defects and miscarriages were found to be of a higher incidence in the timber marking population. That's why a water based paint was formulated.
Click to expand...

WHOAH. That's not one I've heard of. Do you know who did the study? I'd like to find a copy.
 

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