Customer Reviews

Wagner Spray Tech 520000 Power Tex Texture Sprayer

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It should be noted that I consider myself handy and have done several home projects and have had good results without knowing what I was doing and that I am normally physically capable.

After reading the previous reviews I was encouraged to purchase the sprayer. I played with the mixture's consistency and practiced spraying most of the morning and then tackled a small closet that included the ceiling.

It was messier than I expected with not just pieces hitting the floor but gobs oozing out of the nozzle and onto the trigger. (The instructions mention that some water may leak out of this area.) If you are an Amazon lady or trained with the military and are used to holding an AK-47 or lift weights on a daily basis you should be fine pulling and holding the trigger and holding up the sprayer to get the coverage you want. (I had to use two hands at times to keep the trigger fully pulled.) I only finished because it became personal after the first hour. I was trying to get the pattern that would match my existing texture so maybe I was expecting a little too much. (Professional texture man is scheduled to arrive in a few days.) I will still use the machine to texture the walls in the garage but I was not able to get the design I wanted for the house. I am good about reading and following directions so I do not think I could improve upon the performance except with maybe more target practice. I did find that clean-up was not bad at all.

NOTE-----Updating you on my 2 star review. The professional painter/texture man showed up and guess what he was using? Yep, the same Wagner machine! He has had it a long time and swears by it. He complimented me on my closet and said that he had to go through the same trial and error but the main tip he gave was very thin mud. I watched and it was very runny. The instructions state "like pancake batter" but his was VERY THIN. Can't stress that enough. Still was messy on application but not like when I used it and it will not work you as hard since you will not have the mixture so thick. So, based on everything he said and the fact that he no longer uses the bigger machines and his Wagner had tape all over it from obvious hard use, I am upgrading it to 4 stars and withholding the one star for when I attempt the garage. Hope this helps!

My wife and I just purchased our first home and she really dislikes popcorn ceilings. So she insisted that we have it removed and put up a knockdown texture in it's place. Then after a few estimates, the cheapest we could get it done to our whole house was for a little under $3000 which was more that what we were willing to spend with all the other things that we needed to have done to the house. So I priced out all the materials needed and my estimate came in at about $900. Keep in mind that this price is also including the cost of the tools needed (ex. 1/2" drill, trowel, paint primer, sprayer, ect.) which I didn't own.

Anyway, after going to my local Home Depot, they wanted about $60 a day to rent a sprayer and since I wanted to take my time, this really wasn't an option. I know that Wagner states that this sprayer is really for touch up jobs and not exactly for doing a whole house but let me tell you, I did my whole house and it worked great. After practicing a bit in the rooms first, my results were identical to a professional job at 1/3 the price. I will tell you this, it is a lot of work and the hardest thing about it is removing the popcorn and preping the room. I know some people say to use a garden sprayer and then they sell this neat little scraper at Home Depot that you can attach a bag to so you don't make a mess but that scrapper is junk. If you want to move fast, tape up the walls and floor using plastic sheeting and use a garden hose with a 10 or 12 inch taping knife to remove the popcorn. You'll barely scratch the sheet rock underneath and you'll remove the popcorn in under 30 minutes per room. The whole process is truly a huge mess but the end result is a very nice looking textured wall. I decided to go with the medium nozzle (yellow) and I ended up with a very nice looking texture that isn't as bold and some of the houses I've seen.

So if you're in the same situation my wife and me were in and you're fairly competent with tools, you'll be able to do the same thing because I'm a complete novice when it comes to drywall textures and I ended up with a great looking house. I'll also be honest and tell you that the first room I did, didn't come out as nice as the last but not because I applied the texture incorrectly but because I knocked some of it down too soon. Make sure you wait at least 20 minutes before knocking it down and after you spray a wall, take a step back and if you see any bare placed, just go over it with a quick trigger pull and you'll be amazed at what you're left with.

I am rehabing a home in Tampa, florida, and tried with mixed results to use the spray texture cans from Home Depot . six cans with six different poor results. I purchased this sprayer, shot an entire bathroom with AWSOME results. I LOVE IT. Buy one

Im a professional drywall finisher of over 10 years, and think this thing is great. No more hauling in a heavy texture rig and dirty hose for patch jobs. For the do-it-yourselfer $100 it isn't much more than a regular hopper and gun that requires a compressor. Great price for a sweet sprayer.

This is a good-value tool. I am a handy-man. I have rented professional rigs and thought I would try this cheap tool for a small repair job. It works and it works well. The instructions say to mix the plaster to a pancake like consistency. Experiment with your own, but I found a "thin" pancake mixture to work better. Clean-up takes about 3 minutes. Compared to the rental cost of a professional rig, it paid for itself in one day. I will now use it for larger jobs.

Fantastic. Great for patches or an entire wall. Just did an entire bathroom and it came out great. Very easy to use, easy to clean. Well worth the money.

I was a little sceptical about this product doing as it says, but after finishing my living room all doubts where erased. Now wait, it does have a learning curve, don't think taking it out of the box and start spraying away will yield great results. Not likely. If you pratice like others have said that helps greatly. I think the hardest part was getting the drywall mud to the right consistinsy. I did orange peel, believe when I say if you think it has enough water in it add a little more. When I took the mixing paddle out, the mud came right off, did not stick, runny, soupy like, allot thinner than pancake batter. Do a pratice spray on cardboard and check your results. Do a back and forth motion about 2 to three feet away and do not stay in one place to long. Go over again for heavier texture. Not too much on first passes though or it will not look too good. Let it dry then go over it again. Few other things is I did a large room 15 by 20 by 16 ft high. It makes it harder,but not impossible. If you do a large area everytime you refill take off the nozzle clean it and the opening on the gun. If not it will clog up and flow will stop or the mud in the hopper will bubble and blow up out of the hopper, not that dramatic but you will hear it bubbling and rumbling you will know, then you have to clean it. Only takes min or two. Cover your mixed mud while spraying or it will harden. Also I noticed it did firm up a bit in the bucket even though it was covered, so adding a little water would not hurt each time. Just depends on your mud. IT IS ALSO VERY VERY MESSY....Cover EVERYTHING, windows, floors, vents, dogs, cats...Really you will regret it if you don't. It not for pin point accuracy, comes out fowards but in a wide arc, shallow arc, whatever it feels like. You do have some control, dont get me wrong, but there is some leakage, and if you dont cover the floors they will be textured as well. Its fun, also the unit loaded with mud is heavy, and large projects can get tiring. Oh also I placed it on the ground to load it, hopper in the position to do walls, easy. Also something to keep in mind, I primed my walls and ceiling it made it difficult to see results and where I sprayed, I had to bring in utility lights, still was hard, I suggest using a tinted primer close to what you will eventualy paint the walls, if white oh well, but I know if you can, it will be easier to see what you doing and get faster results, thats the only headache I had white mud white walls blends in...ahhh.. Not Wagners fault though. I highly recommend it, just be prepared and be patient and I believe you will have fun too and yield great results...Everything is easy to clean too..Have Fun..

I was sprucing up the garage and had about 50 linear feet of drywall that I wanted to texture. I purchased a 3.5 gallon bucket of ready mixed texture from Home Depot for around $10, but it still needs water to thin down to the proper consistency. I ended up dumping the texture into a 5 gallon bucket which made it easier to mix. (You definitely need a drill with one of the mixing attachments)

I had also purchased some 3' wide plastic which I taped to the bottom of the wall to keep the floor clean. Well, this thing makes quite a mess, and 3' was not enough. I would have been better off just covering the whole floor, but oh well.

Definitely practice a bit - I ended up using the medium sized nozzle for the look I wanted. Also, loop the power cord around so that the connection won't pull apart - I stepped on the extension cord at one point and it pulled out, causing a big "spit" of mud on the wall when the sprayer died. One other thing to look out for is when filling the hopper - you can rotate it to the front for doing ceilings, or towards the back for walls. I set the sprayer on the floor and poured the texture compound into the hopper from my bucket - but with the hopper towards the front, as soon as I turned away to set the bucket down, the hopper fell over :( So if your going to fill the hopper by setting it on the floor, rotate the hopper to the back or be careful.

One other thing that I was glad I bought was a drywall "squeege" for the knockdown. It looks like a window squeege, with a rubber edge and is about 24" wide. It worked much better than a metal drywall knife that I also tried using.

All in all, it was a lot of work, it made quite a mess, but I was very pleased in the way it turned out. Clean up was very easy, and I would definitely but this sprayer again. Now that I have some experience with it, there are some places inside my house that need some work...

It took about half an hour of practice. I set some cardboard up in the garage and practiced away. I had to keep adding water to the already premixed drywall mud. The mixture has to be much soupier than I thought it would. But I was able to do my master bath in about half an hour. It looks great. Very uniform. I can see that it would work very well for ceilings too.

My celings look great, did two rooms in my basement, was planning to do knockdown, but was too scared to mess it up with the trowel since it looked so good already, so left it as orange peel, after painting, it looks great. DO START IN A CLOSET or someplace out of sight. my closet went on way to thick. Also, use the smallest size nozzle to start with, it will be easier to get use to then. I would reccomend this product, but you need someone with strong arms and back to hold up the hopper and gun the whole time you are spraying, it gets pretty taxing on the body, but worth the results!!