@PhoenixG …. Thanks PG. All downloaded. I’ll have a look at them tomorrow.
Cheers,
Mark
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Nice recovery with the torture chamber bars.
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Update is that, there is no update. I’m currently in a holding pattern for a few reasons.
- My wife had hip surgery three days ago and I’ve been quite involved with that and her recovery.
- The window that I vent my spray booth through is frozen shut. I’m intending to purchase a 12 gauge 15 amp extension cord for running a hair dryer onto it to thaw it out. Haven’t had a chance to make that purchase yet.
- I thought I was ready for airbrushing primer on all parts, but admittingly, I have been wondering how to go about holding the small parts for that. Conveniently, I just watched an FSM Scale Model Basics video the other day that explains how to do this. I have the skewers, drilling equipment and CA glue. Just need to get some 1.0mm brass rod. Hoping my LHS has that in stock when I pay them a visit tomorrow.
Hoping to get moving on this project again soon. Seems to be too many little things cropping up that delay it. (Not that my wife’s surgery is a little thing, but the others seem to be. Previous issue was discovering I didn’t have a proper holder for my airbrush. Frustrating, but I want to do it right.)
Thanks for looking.
Cheers,
Mark
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Wishing a speedy recovery for your wife.
Sounds like you’ve got the small parts holder issue worked out. Once the window is defrosted good luck with the priming!
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Ah the joys of living in Canada! Thoughts and prayers for your wife…
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@MisterMeester : You can add me to the list of folks that are wishing your wife a swift recovery from the hip surgery.
Looking forward to seeing more progress on this one when you get back under way with it.
Joe
Thanks guys. She’s getting better every day.
Cheers,
Mark
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I’ve actually run into the same issue (Minnesota!). However I had an easy fix - my vent window is a basement egress window so it’s in a deep recess, and I ended up building a false inner window lined with insulation and a dryer vent port through which I can exhaust my spray booth. That way the actual window well stays cold all the time.
Modeling always seems to take a back seat to “real life” stuff, but that’s okay. It’s here waiting for you.
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Brrrrrrrr 
I bought the cord to run the hair dryer to defrost the window, but now I’m thinking it’s just too dang cold out anyway. -24 Celsius for a daytime high these days. It’s suppose to get less cold next week (I hate saying warm up. That doesn’t happen until May).
Curious……from your experience do you get cold air coming in through the vent duct during a painting session, or does the outlet fan pretty much keep it out? I suppose it depends on the strength and direction of the wind outside?
Cheers,
Mark
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It was -10°F here this morning! 
With the fan running, no air comes in at all. It’s a pretty good blower.
But I have to make sure to reach through the vent hole to close the window, and to put the little foam plug into my duct hose or else cold air just POURS in, since I’m below grade.
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@Toimi_Tom That’s a nice solution. I like the wood grain you’ve chosen.
My set up is quite basic. I went with the same solid insulation.
But there were the gaps.
So I solved that with the addition of foam.
Pics were taken a year ago when I first set it all up.
As mentioned earlier, my latest issue is sliding the frozen window open. Arrrrgh!
Cheers,
Mark
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I hope the best for your wife’s recovery. I’ve had both knees & both hips replaced already.
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@MR_TOM_SCHRY Thanks Tom. She’s having a rougher time with this hip surgery than the one she had in October. Different anesthesiologist is the only reason we can think of. Spinal both times but different methods. We are hoping she turns a corner soon.
Edited to add: To her credit, she powered through the October surgery recovery and this one without taking the opioid pain killer. Just Tylenol. Tough.
Cheers,
Mark
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Temperatures have become less cold enough that I can get the spray booth vent window open. Woohoo!
So, as a first time novice airbrusher, this was a two day struggle. But I finally achieved this. All parts primed!
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Mark, sending best wishes and a fast recovery to your wife. Love the work on the Phantom kit. I too plan on leaving the prisoner off of my kit as well. Looking forward to your progress.
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As I mentioned above, that was a struggle. Not sure if I should ask here, or in another thread.
Anyway,… here goes…
So my first attempt (ever. in my lifetime. at airbrushing) didn’t go so well. No beginner’s luck here.
I figured I want to learn how to airbrush with a single action external and went with the single action external brush the Point Zero kit I bought provided me with. The PZ-276. The nozzle is 0.8mm.
My primer mix for the first attempt was 6ml Vallejo Surface Primer, 1ml Vallejo Airbrush Thinner, and 1ml Vallejo Flow Improver.
This was the result…
So, I figured, okay, I used a pipette to transfer the primer from the source bottle to the airbrush jar. So maybe it probably wasn’t 6ml, because some of the primer would have remained inside the pipette. So, perhaps my first batch was too thin.
So, for my next attempt, I made sure to transfer 6ml of primer into a mixing cup. I also changed the thinner from 1ml each of Airbrush Thinner and Flow Improver to 1.5 ml and 0.5 ml respectively.
This is the result of that…
Not great by any means. Also, note the protrusion of the paint nozzle beyond the air nozzle compared to the opposite in this diagram…
So, wondering why this was going so wrong, I decided to try an attempt with just primer, not thinned. And this was the result of that…
Still splattering.
So, I figured, okay…lets try a different airbrush. So I tried the PZ-260 Dual Action Gravity Feed brush, 0.3mm nozzle set, and achieved successful results.
So, long story short, I guess what I’m looking for here is some agreement that the Point Zero PZ-276 single action siphon feed airbrush is poop?
Edited to add: The first three attempts (with the single action external siphon feed), I was not getting any product coming out of the airbrush. I had to open it to its max until product sprayed out.
Thanks for looking, suggestions are more than welcome.
Cheers,
Mark
I’ve only ever used double action gravity feed airbrushes, but a couple of things come to mind.
However my understanding is that the movement of air over the paint nozzle is supposed to draw the paint up. It’s possible the air pressure was too low which required overextending the paint nozzle in order to get enough airflow over it in order to draw the paint. That would likely mess up the proper atomization of the paint.
I’d suggest backing the paint nozzle back down. Then test by increasing the air pressure to see if that addresses the issue you were experiencing with paint not being drawn. Once you can get paint being drawn more consistently, suggest testing applying paint to a piece of gloss cardboard to adjust the paint nozzle to adjust coverage.
Keep in mind that with that large .8mm nozzle it’s going to have pretty wide coverage so you’ll probably not want to start any closer than 3" or you may end up flooding the piece with paint.
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@PhoenixG Thanks for the reply. I’ll try this. I was going by my relatively new Vallejo Airbrushing and Weathering Techniques book. In that it was recommended to go with a low psi. 15-20 I think is what it said. But what was NOT said is a type of airbrush they were referring to! I’ll have to go back and re-read that section to be sure.
On another note….what is gloss cardboard? Never heard of that before.
Thanks and cheers,
Mark
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I meant to say glossy cardboard. Like what you find on cereal boxes. Uncoated cardboard like what you find on shipping boxing soaks up the paint making it hard to check technique. Coated cardboard almost acts like painting styrene. I used it for practicing when I was first starting with an airbrush because it was readily available and effectively free.
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I think @PhoenixG has you covered. I will add that I suspect any guide that specifies a PSI is going to be referring to gravity-feed airbrushes, since that’s what most modelers are using. Sounds like you’ve got some experimenting to do!
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