Wagner 0525032 Power Painter Max with EZ Tilt, Indoor/Outdoor Paint Sprayer Spray Gun

At my wife's insistence, I bought the Wagner Power Painter Max EZ Tilt sprayer to paint 275' of 6' wooden fence and am glad that I did. I was concerned about the Max spraying the very thick (and very expensive @$70/gal)Sherwin Williams Endurance paint 'n primer so I thinned it slightly with Flood Floetrol. It sprayed beautifully. I kept the sprayer fairly close to the boards and sprayed a heavy coat on the bare wood. My wife followed behind with a 4" brush to spread any drips or thick spots. Once we got the hang of it we were completing about a linear foot a minute, which included 6' fence boards, 6" posts, (3) 2"x6" stringers and a 2"x6" top cap. I mention this only because there was much more to paint than just the vertical boards. Instead of using the paint cup which would have required constant refilling, I used the suction hose from the kit and a one-gallon can of paint. Here was the real time saver: I ran my belt thru the metal handle on the paint can and hung the can on my side, then sprayed away until each can was almost empty. The plastic can lid in the Max kit worked perfectly and I did not spill a drop despite bending over to spray the lower sections. The hose fits tight in the included can lid and will not fall out. This was a far better solution than the optional Wagner back-pack for the sprayer. Plus, by using the hose, you can spray at any angle, even overhead, vertical or horizontal.I read the reviews before ordering the Max from Amazon and ordered a spare piston just to be safe, but did not need it. The negative reviews I attribute to users not reading and carefully following all the included directions and carefully cleaning the sprayer (more on that later). My suggestion - be sure to read all the instructions. Yes, it is very simple to use but if you don't pay attention to the warnings in the instructions, you are likely to have problems with this sprayer. Don't just hold the trigger down and spray large areas. It's best to spray a pass, release the trigger, spray a pass, release, etc. Be careful not to spray a heavy burst of paint each time you press the trigger at the start of the next pass. This pausing helps keep the pump from overheating from constant use. In my case, I released the trigger after each pass, usually 3' or 6' passes, then pressed it again to start the next pass.Most importantly, if you aren't going to be meticulous about cleaning the sprayer, don't waste your money on it. Be sure to follow the included detailed cleaning and lubricating instructions. I thoroughly cleaned the sprayer after each 2 gallons. Perhaps it was due to the thick paint, but a heavy coat of paint would build up around the spray nozzle, the spray head and around the pump piston and spring. You can wipe off the excess at the nozzle and head with a finger but cleaning the piston requires disassembly. If the paint dries on the piston, you can permanently damage the pump. Unfortunately, much of the time saved with the sprayer was lost in cleaning the sprayer. I didn't have hot soapy water like specified in the directions and used only a garden hose. Cleaning would surely have been much faster with hot water. It takes seconds to disassemble the entire sprayer, but quite a while to thoroughly clean all the parts. Reassembly is almost as easy as disassembly.Use a good, heavy extension cord such as 12 gauge, especially if you have to run it any distance from the electrical outlet. This is not a sprayer that I would loan out to most people because of the cleaning requirement and the damage that can occur from improper cleaning.Here are my pros and cons about the sprayer.PROS: Very easy to use. Can spray a lot of paint and cover a large area quickly. Worked well even with thick paint. Dual orifice spray tip gives excellent coverage with very little (negligible)overspray. Excellent spray pattern and coverage. Super simple to change spray pattern from vertical to horizontal by simply twisting the spray head. Kit includes two cleaning brushes, a round bristle and a toothbrush, and a jet spray tip to attach to a garden hose. One end of the toothbrush has a small tooth on it to use in cleaning the piston spring. Very easy to quickly disassemble without any tools and very easy to reassemble. The internal parts showed no signs of wear after several hours of use.CONS: It is a time-consuming pain to clean and cleaning can negate the time saved from spraying on a large job, especially when you have to stop mid-job to clean it. Is a little heavy, but using the included suction hose instead of the paint cup makes it lighter. The kit includes a teeny-tiny (about 1/8th tsp.) vial of oil to lubricate the piston and 4 o-rings. It's just barely enough to very sparingly lubricate after 2 cleanings. The motor can get pretty hot and will cause paint to harden around the piston, hence the need for frequent cleaning.SUMMARY: I love the sprayer, despite the cleaning issue, and am glad that I listened to my wife and bought it. Painting is one of my least favorite things to do and this sprayer made the job a breeze.

This works great. Fast, effective, easy to use, one coat coverage. Clean up takes some time, but if you are too lazy to do it right, dont buy it. If you want a quality product, that requires some reasonable care and maintenance, then this is a good buy, and a great product.Update, Sep 2012. I have had this product about 3 months. I have painted a large deck and boathouse with latex paint. It worked perfectly. I used both the 1.5 Qt bottle and the Gallon adapter to draw paint straight out of the paint can. Both worked without problems. Yes, cleanup takes a little time, but well worth it. The deck and boathouse I painted, I have done in the past by hand, and it took 2 days. I did this with the Power Painter in less than 4 hours.I just recently painted 22 interior doors, both sides, with oil based paint. As you know, working with Oil paint is a real pain to begin with. However, the Power Painter worked great. I did not even need to thin the paint. It took a couple of doors (I did the hidden back sides of a few first) to get the hang. Initially, I was moving the gun to fast. The key is to make moderately slow strokes (I did all vertical), and overlap each stroke by about 50%. One thing to note...when your gun indicates low paint, you have about 1/4-1/3 left, so you can finish a door without worry of running out and splattering. When you refill your container, make sure you let the gun rest upright. This allows the one way valve on the EZ Tilt to work properly. If you lay the gun on its side, it will get an air bubble in the tube, and you will have a little splatter when you start to paint again. I had this happen the first time, but after that, made sure the gun was vertical, and I never had a splatter problem again after refilling my container. The outcome was 22 doors that looked professionally painted! I highly recommend this product. Years ago, I had a Wagner Power Painter that was absolute Junk, so I was really hesitant to buy this painter. Not the case today. It is a quality product, that does a first class job of painting most anything you want.

I bought the wagner ez-tilt because I believed it was better quality and design, WRONG! the locking nut and the whole spray tip fell OFF! while I was spraying, and yes I had tightened it well, the remote suction hose setup does NOT! stay attached even remotely, the hoses are way too stiff and the remote suction housing design and quality are so weak, it never will stay on, its junk! I will have to find a way to secure it myself if I want to use it. the sprayer itself works fine. I wonder if any of those so called designers and engineers actually use and test there own stuff! SOMEBODY DROPPED THE BALL! FIX IT!