On Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:16:29 -0400, Ohioguy wrote:

As a kid, I used a really nice quality poly hand pump sprayer to
apply pesticides and foliar fertilizers. It had a brass wand, handle
and tip. I believe the cup inside was actually leather, and if it
wasn't compressing well, you could simply work vaseline into the leather
cup, making it supple again.

I've tried two pump hand sprayers since then. One said "Better Homes
and Gardens", and was a piece of crap. I forget what the other one was,
but I could never seem to get the pressure up as much as I would have
liked, and the plastic tip and handles never seemed to work that well.

Can anyone recommend a good brand, or perhaps even a wonderful make
and model that they have been happy with? I don't care if it is 40
bucks - I just don't want to feel like trashing if after just a few
weeks because of disappointment in quality.

You really need to have separate sprayers for different solutions;
fertiliers, pesticides, and herbacides. Unless you are spraying large
areas/tall trees in most cases an ordinary 1 liter spray bottle will
be very adequate. I have two 3 gallon pressurized sprayers made by
Hudson but rarely use them as I gave up on spraying herbaside on my
gravel roadway and 3 gallons of insecticide/fertilizer is heavy to
haul about and rarely did I use that amount and you really shouldn't
save left overs. For several years now I've been using cheapo 1 liter
trigger spray bottles. However for large tank sprayers any of the
brands sold at the big box hardware emproriums will work well and if
you do have a problem you can return them no questions asked. I even
have a one liter spray bottle that operates with two AA cells, will
spray about ten liters before needing new batterys. The trick to good
service and longiviety with any sprayer is to clean it well
immediately after use, let it fully dry inside before storing so
insects can't make it a home, and don't use corrosive chemicals it's
not made to handle.