I think HVLPs have come a long way in the last 5 years and they are much easier to use and get a nice finish.

I appreciate your “amateur” review of the difference between types of sprayers and your experience. I think I may still use an HVLP because I’m nowhere near wanting to make a large financial investment and that may be fine for these projects. None the less your views and input are much appreciated.

I probably should have phrased my minimum amount comment differently.

You can undoubtedly drain the hose to recover the material, but you do need to start with over a quart of material. Basically, with an airless you don’t want to only purchase a quart of material, you want to purchase one to five gallon containers and make sure that they have at least a half-gallon left in them when you start.

There is a difference in waste between different paint systems, but that has to do with transfer efficiency. I don’t think that’s as important for DIYers as other things.

I’ve only used my sprayer twice but I emptied the paint out of the hose back into the paint bucket. It was water clean up and you can tell when the paint ends and the water begins because it starts to get more runny. Obviously you waste some paint but certainly not a whole quart!