Spraying rustoleum,what gun?

HankRearden said

Tonight I thinned some rustoleum semi gloss black and tried spraying from a couple different guns. The 2.0 top suction feed gun left a crappy ,heavy finish with my minimal skill. Then I tried an old ampro hvlp. It was much nicer but still not quite there.
I'm hesitant to run rustoleum through my devilbiss finishline plus. Although I realize it is a cheapie compared to pro guns its good enough for me. and try to keep it mint for spraying base.
Can anyone recommend a cheap gun? Harbor freight purple,green or any of their myriad of guns? Something else cheap that will lay down a nice finish with lack of skill and crappy paint?
Am I being dumb about my devilbiss?

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Paints should flow out and level when sprayed. This requires them to be thin or reduced enough to flow AND to remain thin long enough for this to happen, which requires the thinner to evaporate slow enough to allow flow out.

Temperature plays a key role in this process. Once the thinner's flash off, the paint will begin to cure. Your material flashed off before it was able to flow out. That indicates to me that you needed a slower evaporating(flash off) thinner.

As long as the gun you are using can atomize properly and control the amount of material and have an equalized pattern resulting in a usable spray fan, the gun you use is not really that critical.

I use generic lacquer thinner to clean my guns. Recently, I used a catylized low gloss black chassis paint from Summit Racing on a project. Various temperature thinners are available depending on the conditions you have. It was spring here and the thinner i used should have been slightly faster than the one I chose. It dried slowly even with the catalyst, but did not run too easily.

It's a balancing act to get material thinned correctly, applied at the right mil thickness and sprayed evenly with no thin or heavy areas. Some paints will orange peel anyway. Color sanding and polishing can be used to alter the surface finish to address that. Metallic paints are harder yet to get right.