What’s the right tool for painting joist bays in the basement

Getting a smooth finish without purchasing an expensive HVLP sprayer is fairly easy. Start with any good grade paint, and treat it with Flotrol acrylic additive at a rate of about 1/2 pint per gallon and mix well. If you get a real thick paint, you can increase the amount of Flowtrol up to one pint per gallon max. I use and recommend Purdy brushes. For trim, I like a sash brush, (angled style). Be sure to pick out a brush for latex paint, usually a combo of nylon and poly bristles. The ends of the bristles need to be very tapered and soft. Check out the Purdy ExtraGlides for latex.

Your technique is important also. Always try to finish with long smooth strokes only using the very tips of the bristles. Properly treated paint and the right brush used well will give you fantastic results. Good luck.

First off, I'm no expert on compressor/air type sprayers. Most of the time, these type sprayers are used for very thin paints such as automotive, lacquers etc. They also have fairly small paint reservoirs attached to the gun itself. They tend to put out a lot of over spray and should be used in a controlled area like a spray booth with proper ventilation. I never see this type of sprayer on building jobs.

The airless sprayer, such as the one you noted, use a high pressure pump to push paint through the hose to the gun. They deliver a good pattern (depending on tip selected), are easily controlled and since they don't mix air with the product, have far less atomazation of paint in the air. the other huge advantage is that the pick-up hose can be put directly into your 1 or 5 gallon can of paint. Follow the directions on priming and cleaning, but it is easy. I personally have a Graco model 17 and love it. It is a professional grade sprayer and retails around $450-$500. Just two weeks ago, I and a helper painted and back-rolled a complete two story house and detached garage in one day.(very long day, however!) This saved 3 or 4 extra days of labor and the results were fantastic. We shot both semi-trans stain on the house and matching color solid stain on the garage. This sprayer handled both products easily. (I always use apx 10 to 15% flowtrol with thicker solid latex based products)

The only disadvantage of this type of sprayer is on very small jobs. It takes about a pint or more of paint to fill a 25 foot hose and closer to 1/2 gallon for a 50 ft hose when priming the unit. This amount product is usually wasted at the end of the job when you get ready to clean the pump.

From the type of jobs you plan to do, I would recommend the airless sprayer hands down.