How would I go about spraying stain on rough ceiling beams? Will there be a lot of overspray floating around? Should I use stain or watered down paint? They are old beams and we want the grain to show through. Do I need to rent a airless sprayer or can I use one like the Wagner pro sprayer? I want good coverage but an awful lot of mess is this possible with spraying?
Judy

 

Are the beams inside or outside? Exterior use stain. Interior you can use either stain or thinned down paint although stain would be better. Spraying can be messy. You need to cover up anything in that area. You may be better off brushing the beams. Brushing may require for the paint to be a little thinner than spraying to give the same look. [always keep a wet edge to avoid lap marks] Brushing usually gives better coverage since it is more apt to work the paint into the wood. I'm not real familiar with the wagners [always used commercial type airless] I know some have a round pattern and some spray a fan like regular paint guns. A slotted tip that produces a fan pattern gives more control than a round spray pattern but a lot depends on what you have experience with.

 

They are interior beams and the Wagner does come with a stain tip. Exsperience is only with exterior sparaying but this is a large ceiling and the thought of all that stain running down my arm from brushing a ceiling this size just don't excite me. They are pretty dry too as they never had anything put on them before so I thought spraying would penetrate better.
Judy

 

Why not use a gel stain. no runs, no drips, no errors[usually]

http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPR...ARTNUM=871-902

 

Are you just staining the beams or is there other wood on the ceiling to stain? Gel stain won't work on rough sawn lumber. The trick to keep the stain on the brush and not running off the handle is to frequently rake the brush on the side of the bucket forcing the material back to the tip of the brush and not letting in fill up the stock. Spraying stain is similar to spraying paint but since it is thin you need to use less pressure and move quicker. Also because it is thinner the overspray is greater.

 

If you can't use the gel what about using a garden type pump up sprayer[or the little hand held one in the depot], and back brushing or something. At least there isn't soooo much overspray and you can get the stain on quick enough to avoid lap marks. You could fold up some paper towels and tape it to the brush to keep the stain from coming down the brush handle. Use some rubber gloves and roll the cuffs back towards the brush. Make sure you don't need some sort of sealer or conditioner before you stain so it comes out even. If you don't put the stain on with the brush the dripping probably won't be too big of an issue.

I never really did much interior staining but I think your biggest problem will be getting the stain in fast enough[3 sides] to avoid lap marks. I would probably have 2 people doing this job no matter which way you go.

You said rough,not rough sawn, in your original post I am assuming it is rough sawn which will probably suck it up real fast. Imho some type of spray application with back brushing[2 people]may be best. But I really don't know having never done it. I am only talking about what would be going through joneq's head if this project was on his agenda.

 

ended up using watered down paint it looked better than the stain and actually sprayed pretty good with the Wagner sprayer. Had to strain the paint though.