Love the foam gun!

B

Blackmirror

New member
I got a chance to use it for the first time yesterday. It was really easy to use and it was fun spraying tons of foam on the truck! I still got some questions about it. What procedure do you like to use when using it? Usually I'll have a rinse bucket, hand in mitt and foam gun in other hand. I'll spray half my hood and get it nice and foamy. Wash with mitt then rinse mitt and half of hood before moving onto next panel. I like to use 2 or 4 oz per gallon(Is that too much?).



Sometimes when I put it down it doesn't stay standing up because of the hose so I just disconnect(I get annoyed when I have to keep on disconnecting it and connecting it for some reason).



All in all, I love this thing!
 
Heck I will foam half the vehicle, wash it, foam it and then rinse. I can wash a regular cab pickup in about 15 to 20 min.



Not sure what you mean by the 2 to 4 oz. thing.



Do you have a quick disconnect from the hand sprayer to the foamer? I bought one of those fireman hose ends, and put a quick disconnect on that. When I get done foaming and get to the rinse, I just pop the foamer off and put the firemans hose end on the hand sprayer. Just an idea for the foam gun users.
 
I dilute my wash solution by eyeballing it maybe 60% water 40% car wash. adjust as you see fit. I make sure I have a constant stream of foam over the part of the panel I'm washing. I also lube the mitt with the foam gun . Doing this forces you to concentrate a little section at a time: only so much area you can keep the stream of the foam over at one time.



With the foam gun:



Remove the trigger attachment, hook it up to a quick disconnect on your hose connected a plastic shut off valve. Use the brass bar to switch back and forth from foam to water and the cut off to turn the water on and off. watch your foam volume increase with this :D



As for the bucket setup, here's the ideal one for me:



Two rinse water buckets--preferably with Grit Guards, one for each side of the car



A third bucket or even a pail filled with car wash solution as you would traditionally have for washing



One pail to hold fresh mitts and another for dirty ones



I hope to get pail dollies for those two rinse water buckets. It will make the process a lot easier



I also ideally have a second hose hooked up with an Ultimate Nozzle attached, with quick disconnects and a cut off, for rinsing.
 
I can get some pics up this weekend if you want. Just let me know.



Basically, on my gun I had one female quick disconnect on the end of the hand sprayer. My foam gun has a male disconnect. I went out and bought two more male disconnects. Those screw into my attachements so they all become quick disconnects.

I will try and get some pics for you.
 
Sears sells the brass quick disconnects. I buy the cheapie shut off valves from Wal-Mart because I replace them so often, thank very much to accumulator on advising that they can easily launch themselves if you don't change them fairly often :scared:
 
Yeah, remove the foamgun's pistol grip part and use brass quick-disconnects to hook it onto the end of the hose. My setup is hose, plastic shutoff, brass female quick-disconnect. I have male quick-diconnects on all my nozzles, foamguns, etc.



I use a second hose for my rinsing so I don't have to switch nozzles as often. I find the rinse function of the foamgun to be too weak for my liking.



I usually set the foamgun in my rinse bucket instead of setting it on the ground. I make sure it's clean so it does't add contaminants to the rinse water. Gotta watch that it doesn't get completely submerged/leak into the rinse water, but it never stands upright if I try to set it on the ground.



Things you can try with the foamgun:



-Spray foam at the point where the mitt contacts the panel, for constant flushing/lubrication of the surface. This is probably the method I would recommend for most people.



-Try the "mitt-balloon" technique: put the nozzle of the foamgun inside a chenille/MF mitt, turn it on and let the foam inflate the mitt. Gently move the inflated mitt against the panel while the foam soaks through from the inside. Gotta have plenty of water volume and pressure for this to work and it takes a bit of practice.



-Fill your mitt with foam, hold the cuff shut and let it seep out through the mitt while you wipe it gently across the panel. Sorta a simplified variation of the "mitt-balloon".



-Use the foam for a presoak. Let it dwell on the panels for a little while and rinse it off with a strong stream of water, then wash normally.



-Spray foam through the bristles of a BHB when cleaning off nasty stuff.
 
Accumulator,



Get another spare pail, any size more or less ought to do, and place the foam gun in that. No need to worry about contaminating at all that way.
 
Bill D said:
Accumulator,



Get another spare pail, any size more or less ought to do, and place the foam gun in that. No need to worry about contaminating at all that way.
Click to expand...



Heh heh, I dunno, I sorta think I oughta draw the line at two wash and two rinse buckets (and the wheel bucket, and the used towel/mitt tub). Any more would be too much even for me; there's a limit to how involved even *I* am willing to get with this stuff!



The contamination thing isn't *really* a worry. I just clean the foamguns off at the start of the job and then keep 'em in the rinse buckets. Works pretty well, actually, but that's using the rectangular Griot's buckets, don't know how it'd work with something else. It's kinda handy always having the foamgun and the rinse bucket in the same place (and on casters)- I'm usually setting the foamgun down to rinse the mitt anyhow.
 
I was also thinking, I'd probably just lay mine down in a spray bottle carrying tray, something I'd bring out any way to hold the spray bottles for tire cleaner, QD , tire brush and undercarriage brush.
 
Blackmirror said:
I got a chance to use it for the first time yesterday. It was really easy to use and it was fun spraying tons of foam on the truck! I still got some questions about it. What procedure do you like to use when using it? Usually I'll have a rinse bucket, hand in mitt and foam gun in other hand. I'll spray half my hood and get it nice and foamy. Wash with mitt then rinse mitt and half of hood before moving onto next panel. I like to use 2 or 4 oz per gallon(Is that too much?).



Sometimes when I put it down it doesn't stay standing up because of the hose so I just disconnect(I get annoyed when I have to keep on disconnecting it and connecting it for some reason).



All in all, I love this thing!
Click to expand...



Where did you buy the gun and how much?
 
Hi all. As a clean freak, I like anything that works well and saves me some time. I have not heard of a Foam Gun before (just found this site yesterday). Can anyone show a pic or point me out where to get some more info? I would appreciate it very much. You guys make it sound like so much fun, I must be missing out!!



Thanks.
 
Blackmirror, I got the same one as you and used it today for the first time.



It was a little cumbersome but fun. Between buckets and mitts and guns I was a little overhwelmed!



I need to play with the soap mixture some more.



But definately a fun tool :xyxthumbs
 
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