airbrush newbie
 

ok i think i pulled a homer. i have just started trying my hand at air brushing. i went and boought a nice paasche airbrush and a cople of airbrush oaint sets (testor). the testor paints came in the litle bottles model fans know and love. my problem is the paint only came out of the gun in spurts and sometimes not at all. i think i messed up by pouring paint from my little testor bottle striat into the airbrush bottle without dilluting it at all. i have since clenaed my gun and wondered if the lack of a steady paint stream is due to me not dillting the paint. doh!

charles

Set pressure at 1.8 B and dillute paint. For this airbrush I think you have add 30% of thinner.

CLEAN THE GUN OUT NOW !!! Break it down it into several tiny little parts which roll all around and fall off the table the secound you take your eye off them to make a sickening click as the bounce off the floor and head in some God only knows direction Unseen !!

Cleann all parts Liberly with Laqueur Thinner (Stop Breathing) and DO NOT BEND?KINK OR DROP THE Needle !!!

Now reasemeble all without miss placing the spring and paint lever which activates and controls the flow of paint. Test squeeze the triggers with the thinner? Sprying nice ?

Then try paint. Now get used to this procedure cuase if its a Pasche VL you have to clean it out for every COLOR Change YAYAYAYYAAYYYYY!

I too ran at first and bought the gun "My daddy" had. Two more Airbrushes later ( A Testers plastic gun with seperate nozzles and a Badger 100G Bakers Gun) I have aPAsche VL (Hardly used) In good conditon whihc if I thought of it I should sell !!

See ya Mike

thanks but...
 

thanks for the advice and i already cleaned my gun as soon as i noticed it. but your response never answered my question. im a newbie and is using paint straight from those little testor bottles without dilluting a bad thing (bad thing meaning stopping the gun from spraying properly).

thanks
charles

oops
 

sorry didnt see serkios reply. does it have to be thinner? can i not use water instead?

What you use depends on the type of paint. Testors makes both water based and mineral based paints. The bottle will tell you which you have. Mineral based paints need the thinner made for them, with water based paints you can use water, but I use 409. Some us Alcohol (91% to 99%) but try it first.

Should be thinned to the consistency of whole milk and should leave a film of paint on the side of the bottle.

dr bubba
 

thank dr bubba. i appreciate the information.

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.co...irbrushing.htm

Short story; add 30-50% apropriate thinner and shoot at 12-15 psi (.7-1.0 atm).

A good wash of the parts with dish soap and a real good rinse with water before painting helps remove the release agents sometimes left on the plastic parts.

liquitex
 

thanks for all the great responses. i have one more question. i have lots and lots of those large tubes of acrylic liquitex paints. they usually come in large plastic tubes with flip tops. has anyone had any experience using them with airbrushing?

thanks in advance.

charles

Yes and no…

I have airbrushed them, but not on a model or on plastic. I use them occasionally, though not recently, for artwork and then either on t-shirts or canvas…

They are hard to work with. I still thin them with 409, but they are harder to get right and it takes some trial and error. Liquitex in the bottles works better.

I believe the tube paints are formulated to be more of a paste and that makes thinning them more problematic. I’ve also had problems with the tube paints being grainy. Mostly, unless I can’t find the color any other way they are more trouble than they are worth, at least for airbrush work.

For some reason the artists acrylics have more of a problem clogging the airbrush.

Another thing you can do is cut the paint with Future floor wax. This works really, really well, except it gives the paint a semi-gloss or glossy sheen. Fine if that’s what you’re looking for.

Best advice is to experiment.