Painting Plywood Exterior

[FLIENLOW]

I prep'd the outside for paint today and was wondering if I should spray or maybe roll the outside? With spaying the masking will take about as long as the painting, not to mention over spray and using more paint. The siding is not a deep groove T-111, but there is about and 1/8 groove for sure. I am hoping to be about to trim it out first and then just roll the body. Seems like it would be faster.
Anyone have any advice for this?

[jimncheryl]

I would say it depends on the color and the undercoat.
I recently finished painting our home, just my wife and I, 27x60 double wide,I used both methods.
We have hardy panel with rough cut window and eve trim.
The roller method worked ok but as the paint dried we discovered we needed a second coat. The hardy panel has wood grain finish, and was very time consuming getting complete coverage, it used more paint than we expected.
I bought an HVLP from H/F # 44677, I did modify it to pump out of 1 gallon container,I did use it as it came from the box to see if I would like it.
This made the job so much easier and faster the coverage was much better and I used less paint. The spray gets all of those hard to cover areas.
Yes you are correct masking does take time,we bought some of those cheap tarps from H/F covered things with them and threw them away when finished.
The only thing I masked was the glass,I did opposite of the norm and painted the trim etc. last with a painters edge after the main job was done.
One more point, the sprayer did not work well with Kills undercoat (dries to fast) I sprayed a new patio cover made from OSB , finished job looks great but a real pain spraying the undercoat.
There are many HVLP sprayers on the market shop for a good deal.

[JD]

I roll paint on liberally and back brush it. You get better coverage and adhesion this way. You are also able to ensure that you get enough paint in the grooves. You have to do the cut work, which you don't do with spray, but like you said, masking takes time, you can miss in coverage and overspray can be a problem. Also, masking tape does not always do the masking job, regardless what the commercials say. Back brushing is quick with good brushes. I will have a heavy 4" and a quality 2 1/2" cut brush. i keep the brushes I am not using wrapped plastic grocery bags so the paint won't dry. Clean your brushes often if needed. With two people, this process can really fly.

[FLIENLOW]

We ended up just spraying it, and then back rolled.