To clean finish out of my hvlp sprayer, I follow the instructions of
"spraying the appropriate thinner" through the gun. What I didn't like is
the cloud of "appropriate thinner" that this produced. After doing this for
more times than I care to admit to, I came up with the idea of removing the
air horns, then turning the turbine on just enough to pressurize the cup,
shutting it off and *then* spraying the thinner through. With no atomizing
air flow, there's no cloud of thinner, no muss, no fuss, just a thin stream
of thinner from the tip that goes right back into the mason jar. Heck, with
this method, I run the same thinner through a couple of times before one
final rinse with fresh stuff and the gun is much cleaner as a result.

Again, probably obvious for long-time sprayers (Robert ;-) ), but it just
dawned on me.

jc