Air Brushing help

[Guest]

Hey guys got my Airbrush today, watched 2 videos on internet on using and cleaning it, so just put it into practice now was just wondering if anyone had some tips or advice before I get started.

Thanks

Scott

[Ian M]

Find some plastic bottles, boxes, and card and practice on those first. Start with a bit of cardboard just to jet to learn the trigger. Play with the thinning of paint and air pressure. The distance from the nozzle to the object. Generally just figure out how the one thing affects the other.

Tip of the day: Stiff wrist floppy elbow: if you move from the wrist you will change the distance between air brush and object every time as it will move in an arc. Keep the distance the same and you will get a better result.

Then you can play with the clean up process. Just as important!!!

Once you think you are getting the hang of it, find an old kit to practice on.

I believe that on the Badger web site there is a chart that shows season and cure for painting faults, splatter, spiders, runs, blobs all that sort of thing.

Have fun!

Ian M

[Guest]

Do not bend your wrist while spraying; that way you're more likely to get even coverage.

"Spray to the wet." When you're spraying your experimental sheets (you are going to experiment, I hope?) spray the first line, and you'll see that there are three lines, with the centre a solid colour, and a slightly less definite line either side. Spray your next line so that the solid colour covers one of the lesser lines, and continue spraying until the whole lot is covered. Give it a little time, before examining what you've done, so that the paint has a little time to even out, and you should have a sheet of solid colour; if not, don't despair, because it's fairly simple to spray an extra line where you've missed.

Don't wear anything woollen, while you're spraying; it's amazing how attractive wet paint finds the fibres from a pullover.

Get a good spray mask; it might appear expensive, but will make it worthwhile, since the cartridges last for many sessions. Also, the cheap types have a nasty habit of shedding bits all over your fresh, wet paint.

Use the recommended thinners for your paint, at least for your first sessions. Once you've gained experience, you can experiment with exotic liquids, but not at first.

Edgar

[Guest]

Thanks guys, much appreciated I can't get a mask atm so il just use a dust mask with the shed door wide open got any tips on thinning paints? also i bought some alclad primer, its very runny so im guessing it wont need any thinning at all lol is this right??

Thanks

Scott

[Guest]

Good advice from the lads but hold fire Scott - a few questions we need to ask what paint are you gonna use - various paints need various thinners also have you got a compessor or the gas cannisters for your airbrush if its the latter I would put the alclad primer away for a while as it will be gone in seconds you need to use it at very low pressure I use between 10 - 15 max psi also none of the aclad products need thinning and to clean your ab out after using alclad use their own ab cleaner or a cellulose cleaner .

also the alcad stuff stinks bad so get a good painting face mask because the pigments are super fine which why its great stuff to use

Cheers

Richy

[Guest]

Hey, thanks Richy, I use Humbrol Enamels at the moment which will need thinning I think, can I thin it with white spirit? and yes I have a compressor with a gravity airbrush and okay Il put the alclad away for now, also your right alclad is very smelly, I could smell it through the packaging when it came with my turntable haha.

Thanks

Scott

[Guest]

Try a 70% thinner 30% paint ratio for enamels, if you use acrylics then for tamiya i find that a 50%-50% ration works better for xtracrylics and revell aqua i use 15% water to 85% paint as i find this gives me a nice smooth finish. The key is to experiment and like ian says a firm wrist and the rest is practise.

scott