Homemade Fluid Bed Help

[RonB]

Hello,
I am having a fluid bed problem...and am hoping someone on here has a homemade fluid bed and maybe can help.
Yesterday I bought an Elite 802 air pump, 8 ft of aquarium tubing, a 2 inch pvc coupler and a couple 2.75 inch pvc tubes. the air pump is a double outlet so I also bought a "T" fitting to take it down to one line,and a twist type air flow adjuster.
I epoxied the coupler to an aluminum plate, drilled a 1/4 hole in the bottom half of the coupler, epoxied the air line in the hole. I have tried using a coffee filter and a brown paper lunch sack as a filter.
My problem is I cannot get the air flow adjusted to where the paint "boils". I am either getting little volcanos or the paint literally clouds up out of the cup in a fine mist. If I turn it down to where I am getting no volcanos, the paint doesn't appear to do anything but feels fluffy when I tried stirring it.
I don't think the paint is fluffy enough because I still am clogging the jig eyes with paint.

Can anyone with a fluid bed offer any advise as to what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,

Ron