I have used my Blue Point professional air brush with a small diaphram compressor to spray pretreat. It does do a very nice job, you have no splatters and can get exact coverage but I decided it had too much overspray and was too time comsuming. I still ocassionaly use it if I only have one dark shirt to do it is easy to laod and clean up. I have tried to find another type of spray or pump bottle that will give a nice pattern and last more than a day but yet to find anything. If anybody has any good ideas I would love to hear it.
Later,
Kip
Thanks Kip,
I found some plant and chemical sprayers that may be too imprecise but are worth mentioning. (I'm assuming that part of the problem with a hand mist bottle is that output flow rate isn't consistent...?) Okay to post a link I hope -
I tried a pump up pressure quart size sprayer from Lowe's it has an adjustable brass spray nozzle. Looked like it might give a good pattern but I didn't like it when I got it home and tried it. It would splatter big droplets at the beginning and end of the spray. So now my son uses it for a water gun. a $13 water gun..... I will look at the link you sent thanks.
Kip
I'd think to get the proper mist you'd need a HVLP sprayer that requires compressors. It'll be tough to find an alternative that doesn't require compressors. Most people tend to UPGRADE their compressor to get a better spray.
Alternative is the automatic Speedtreat (small compressor runs only a few times) or the Viper XPT (no compressor)
Just to throw something out there, the other person(s) sharing the same space with your are probably not going to want to be around the same space you are pretreating by hand because it can get messy with the overspray. Why not consider doing the pretreatment in a different location (i.e. your garage, friend's place, a rental storage unit,...)? The pretreatment process can be done in advance and does not have to be done in the same location as the printing - in fact, many companies recommend you do manual pretreatment in a different location. Just try to keep the dust away and lay the shirt flat once you cure the pretreatment on the garment.
Zhenjie, thanks, have recently learned that the Viper pt makes a different and generally quieter sound.
Mark, good point. Really I'd like to pt in advance but someone at SGIA (an instructor I think) said shelf life after pt was limited. And someone here warned of wrinkles. Still, I would keep raw shirts at home, so pretreaing there does fit...
I definitely want to reiterate what Mark said about pretreating in a different area than your printer if you'll be pretreating with a Wagner sprayer or airbrush gun. Sticky pretreatment isn't healthy for your printer.
You can store a shirt for weeks or months after pretreating before printing it.
Pretreated shirts do need to be taken care of, but I have seen distributors pretreat shirts a week before a show --> then not use those shirts at the show (usually 3 days) --> ship the shirts back home (4-5 days) --> unpack the trade show crates and then use the shirts several days later. So that is easily 2 weeks.
I think the only way you are going to find that getting an automatic pretreater a good business decision is if you are doing around 40-50+ shirts a day. If you don't have that level of business, you will find it difficult to make your return on investment. Thus, you might want to consider manually doing the pretreating in the beginning. Then work your way up to an amount of shirts where you can ROI out the automatic pretreater (and maybe get your own space). Just could think of a lot of other things you could use the $4,000 - $7,000 for if you are starting a business.
Air brush pretreat? 
