Reversible airless spray tips are a great time saving innovation for use with airless paint sprayers. The very fine orifice openings on airless spray tips are easily clogged with particles larger than the airless spray tip opening and when these obstructions are forced into the airless spray tip at a couple of thousand PSI a lot of force is often required to remove the obstruction.

When a blockage occurs using a flat airless spray tip, subsequent clearing of the obstruction required removing the airless spray tip from the spray gun and trying to push the blockage out with very fine tip cleaning needles. Naturally this process is very time-consuming and not always successful.

Reversible airless spray tips, occasionally referred to as reverse a clean airless spray tips, typically have the same small tungsten carbide spray tip mounted in a round stainless steel cylinder.

The reversible airless spray tip cylinder is held in place on the spray gun by a tip holder which presses the reversible airless spray tip cylinder against a concave reversible tip seal. Reversible airless spray tip cylinders typically have a wing or a T bar on the opposite end to where the tungsten airless spray tip orifice is mounted to enable rotating the reversible airless spray tip while it is mounted in the tip older against the airless spray gun.

If a blockage occurs while spray painting with a reversible airless spray tip fitted to your airless spray gun in almost all cases simply reversing airless spray tip 180 degrees and quickly triggering the spray gun will clear the tip blockage instantly. As soon as the blockage is cleared rotate the reversible airless spray tip 180 degrees back to the spray position and continue spray painting.

Most reversible airless spray tips will have three numbers stamped into the tip assembly somewhere which indicates the tip size. As with most other airless spray tips, the first digit indicates the degree is that the orifice is cut at and the second two digits indicate the orifice opening size in thousands of an inch. A simple rule of thumb to remember in determining the spray fan pattern widths is to double the first digit and the result will be the approximate fan tip width in inches. For example 417 is a eight inch wide spray fan with a 0.017 of an inch orifice.

Wagner TradeTip2 a popular reversible airless spray tip