Sears recently sent me a Craftsman C3 19.2 volt Chemical Sprayer Model 17599 to Review. I am very leery of these small sprayers, almost all of them are cheap junk so I couldn’t wait to tell you how bad it was.
Listed on Sears.com as: Craftsman C3 Chemical Sprayer Kit
Craftsman C3 Chemical Sprayer Kit Click on the link to read more and buy this sprayer from Sears
Craftsman C3 19.2 volt Chemical Sprayer
Taking it out of the box I read the manual. The manual is straight forward and easy to understand. I assembled the hose to the sprayer. All you have to do is screw the hose onto the pump body. The connection is solid and all the parts are well made. It was ready to go.
I decided to disassemble the unit and inspect it before using it so I unclipped the tank from the pump. The tank is totally enclosed with a 1 1/2 inch fill tube. The cap for the fill tube doubles as a measuring dispenser if you want to use concentrated chemicals. It has marking calibrated in ounces and mili-liters.
The hose is a nice reinforced plastic hose with a black smooth plastic covering the inner hose. It is flexible enough for this application and it will not rot and crack like most of the small handheld sprayer hoses. The pump end connector is molded onto the hose to eliminate leaks. The other end is forced over a ferrule and clamped to the with a nut.
The handle is solid and designed to fit your hand. The trigger and trigger lock will withstand years of use. The spray wand is a nice heavy brass tube (thicker than most hand held sprayer wands) and won’t get damaged easily. The nozzle is all brass with a good o-ring. The orifice on the wand is large enough to pass most sand particles and the nozzle itself is has a nice machined hole and cone shaped, polished dispersement area. The nozzle is a pleasant surprise and I really appreciate the extra thoughtfulness in the design.
The unit is designed to fill, plug the battery in and turn on the pump. You leave the pump running and use the trigger on the spray wand to control your spraying. I left the pump running for ten minutes without using the sprayer and there were no leaks or weeping around any of the fittings.
The pump head and housing are a good quality plastic and will not absorb any chemicals you any spill on it. The motor switch is sealed and should give years of service. The pump itself is sealed and adequate for this size of sprayer. The seal between the pump and the tank is a two part plastic connection that seals up well.
Spray Handle clips into pump for ease of use
The tank mounts to the pump with two stainless steel latches.
You will normally not have to remove the pickup tube from the tank, but I did just to check it out. The pickup tube is clear and at the pickup end has a nice stainless screen that will pre-filter your solution. This also was a nice surprise. Having the pre filter will keep clogging the nozzle to a minimum. The pre filter is self-cleaning and you won’t have any problems with sand and dirt clogging this sprayer. The pick up screen has little spacers so it stays about 1/8 off the bottom of the tank. I doubt you will ever have to remove the pickup tube to clean it.
I normally use a coffee filter and funnel to strain my well water and the chemicals I am putting into a small sprayer. This sprayer has a fine enough filter at the pickup and large enough holes in the spray wand that I feel you will never have a clogging problem like you normally do with the small hand pump sprayers.
The manual explains how to clean the unit but I recommend the three-step clean method. (see the side note at the end of this review)
First Test:
I used the small lithium 19.2 volt battery for this first test. I filled the sprayer with plain tap water. For this test I tried it out on my dry concrete driveway to see the coverage and pattern.
I ran a whole gallon of water through it . It has a convenient trigger lock so you don’t have to hold the trigger down when spraying large areas. I experimented with the adjustable the spray pattern and how far away you have to hold the unit to get good coverage.
The unit has enough pressure to spray a good consistent pattern holding it normally in your hand. With a lot of the hand held pump units you actually have to bend over a little to get a good pattern. It sprays a nice even pattern that will “wet” the surface you are spraying well. I then adjusted the nozzle to a stream and it would spray about 8 feet without much of a drop off. I really like the spray nozzle! It’s really nice to find an inexpensive sprayer with a good brass nozzle.
After assuring myself that the sprayer will spray well I set the trigger lock and let the unit pump out all the water in the tank. When it ran dry I checked to see how much water was left in the tank. There was less than a 1/4 cup left! The pickup screen and tube work very well together.
High Quality Spray Tip
Second Test:
For the second test I sprayed the foundation of my house to keep the spiders and other little “nastys” from getting into the house. I used “Ortho Home Defense” straight out of the gallon bottle. Wow! it was so much easier using this sprayer than trying to use the little pump applicator that comes with the insecticide. I had my foundation sprayed in about 10 minutes. The sprayer did an excellent job of wetting the foundation without over-spraying the surrounding areas. And… I didn’t get cramps in my hands from constantly having to pump the little sprayer that came with the insecticide. You can finish your work in the garden using this sprayer in half the time of using a manual pump sprayer. Now how is that for convenience?
I can’t wait to use it on my dandelions.
Summary:
This sprayer is a pleasant surprise in the world of small lightweight chemical sprayers. It is very well built and will last you a long time. If have a need to use this type of a sprayer it is well worth the money. I not only recommend this applicator, but I feel it is worth buying even if you do not have any other C3 19.2 volt tools. (You will have to buy a 19.2 volt battery and charger) For example, a farmer I know needs to spray all 500 of his cows with a 2 inch band of spray down their backs each time they leave the milking parlor. He has been going through a 2 gallon pump sprayer every two weeks. He bought one of these and now is going on six weeks without a problem. If you need a small, lightweight chemical sprayer, this is the one to buy.
BUY IT HERE: Craftsman C3 Chemical Sprayer Kit Click on the link to read more and buy this sprayer from Sears. You can purchase it online, have it shipped to your house or pick it up at your nearest Sears store. I will make a small commission if you purchase one through this link.
Ask questions, tell us about your new sprayer in the comments below:
On a side note: I held an Illinois Commercial Applicators License until I moved up here to Wisconsin. I believe strongly in chemical safety for you and the enviroment. The manual states you can easily clean this unit with a few drops of household detergent, but I suggest you use the three step method to clean your sprayer each time you use it. First, when you are done fill the sprayer with clean water, shake it around and dump this out. Second, remove the spray nozzle. You can use a few drops of detergent in this step if you want. Fill it again and run the pump for about fifteen seconds letting water stream out of the nozzle. Dump the rest of the water out of the container. Third, Fill it one last time. Put the nozzle back on and pump the clean water through the unit for another 15 to 30 seconds. Dump the clean water out and run the pump until all the water is out of the pump. Last remove the spray hose from the unit (the red connector) open the spray lever and let the water drain out of the hose. Now it’s clean for the next time and you won’t run the risk of putting Roundup where you wanted liquid fertilizer.
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