How to spray paint into tight spaces

[Arron]

I'm in the process of finishing some room-dividing screens that I've just made. They have been made with 42x19 clear pine - and the design has a lot of repeating patterns of two or three crosspieces 19mm apart, as you can see in the attached photo. I'm wanting to apply a spirit stain first, then either lacquer or varnish. My problem is getting an even coverage of stain in the recesses between the crosspieces. There are 5 screens so its not a small job.

I tried using a brush but it was time-consuming and the results were awful. The problem is basically that with the gaps being only 19mm wide you are basically painting on the sides of the brush - never a good thing to do.

I tried a tiny roller which was better but it doesn't get into the corners.

I am now trying various methods of applying by spray (fortunately I have a few spare pieces to work on) and the results are slowly getting better. Where I'm at now is using a touch-up gun, pressure and product turned right down, tight pattern, and gently spraying the recesses. Then I swap to a larger gun to spray all the rest.

The main problem is that I always deposit a LOT more stain on the outside faces of the recess then I do in the recess.

As I said, results are not bad, but I'm wondering if anyone has any tips or ideas that might make it easier. Am I missing some well-known trade secret ?

cheers
Arron

ps. and in case you are wondering, I didn't pre-finish them because we thought we would be happy with the look of pine, but now we have repainted the rest of our house we realise they need to be a dark brown.

screen.jpg

[h_samtani]

i did something similar a few years ago, and i had a cheap spray gun at that time and the results were not good.
Ever since then i have avoided such a thing and never had to face the problem, but i have thought of a solution so if i ever need to, i can possibly manage.

The trick is going to be using a very fine nozzle and spray very quickly on the inside, with quick even strokes.
I have a novaspray hvlp and have some 0.5mm tips are the ones that i am talking about.

The other alternative is, spray the inside as normal, yes there will be overspray of the stain, you then sand the faces down to timber and spray the faces again till you are happy with the stain.

The lacquer bit is going to be tricky as you cant repair overspray easily.
The solution there is to spray very thin coats and wait for it to dry before starting the next coat.
You again target the insides first before coming to the face.

hope this helps

Harender

[Master Splinter]

A small airbrush and PLENTY of time...

Personally, I'd be more inclined to label them as "Production Test no.1" and move onto "Production Run no.1" where the material is pre finished before assembly.