Would regular paint thinner work or should i get Vallejo brand thinner. Also when it comes to airbrushes I’m currently looking at the Paasche talon. It has a needle would this be recommended or do certain needle sizes do certain things!
No don’t use paint thinner, get their thinner. At least till you understand thinners better, it’s made to work in their paints. Slosh some milk around in your paint cup, dump it out and clean the cup. Then mix your paint, thinning till it acts like the milk did in your cup. Look at the film it leaves on the sides, how it runs back down the sides and how it drips off your mixing stick. That is about the consistency you want to start with. You probably will still benefit with a drop of retarder in that mix.
“Paint thinner” as in hardware store variety you would use or could use in solvent based enamel paints but not in acrylic. Acrylic thinners have different make up by brand. Some will cross to other brands and some won’t.
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking about the needle. All “internal mix” airbrushes have needles. Generally speaking, the finer the needle (and nozzle aperture) the finer the spray pattern (ie thinner lines)
The Talon’s “standard” needle is 0.38mm. I use a Sparmax brush with a 0.35mm nozzle and that works just fine for both general coverage and for detail work.
Remember that your spray pattern isn’t just determined by the needle size. It also depends on your paint viscosity, air pressure and distance from the subject.
Check Don’s review of the Talon here: https://sites.google.com/site/donsairbrushtips/paasche-talon
Depends where you live, if someone lives in an apartment situation the pancake might not be an option. But it will give out way more volume of air than the HF airbrush compressor. Those HF airbrush compressors are fairly popular, I wouldn’t want to use one with a Paasche H and #5 tip though, I think it would drop pressure and not keep up. A Point Zero with a tank on it might though, for another $20 or so…
I use a home portable compressor myself, it’s 8 gallons, runs an impact wrench in bursts, runs my lvlp spray guns, nail guns and air brushes. And it’s not just noisy but ouright loud ! For airbrushing that doesn’t matter, I air it up and can get through most of the various stages of painting a model before it needs air again, even if I shot the clear on at 35lb. So I use it basically like a portable air tank. But I’m in my own house and have acreage to not bother anyone but the cats when I do air it up and they’re used to it, so is the wife…
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice practice.
How do you learn to airbrush? Practice, practice, practice.
Once you get paint consistency sorted out, then it is time to start looking at air pressure. Higher pressures tend to blow the paint out with less control and often resulting in spiders – those splats with legs that spread out in all directions. While it may take a higher pressure to blow out thick paint, a lower pressure results in more control, finer lines, and the ability to add thin coats of paint in layers.
Lower pressure you can use thinner paint resulting in a more translucent coat.
Lower pressure & thin paint allow you to work closer to the subject, perhaps a half-inch or less. More control.
A gravity-fed airbrush can work at a lower pressure than a siphon-fed brush
Settle on your airbrush and preferred paint. Get a scrap model, some cardboard, or sheet plastic and start practicing. Draw thin lines. Make squiggles. Draw circles. shade them in. Practice, practice, practice. Only then attempt to paint your current masterpiece.
My home setup is a 2 gallon tank shop compressor with quick disconnects into a primary regulator set at 40 PSI, then to a final regulator at my working pressure - 8 to 12 PSI. Do not rely on the regulator on the compressor. I bought a 30 PSI gauge off of Amazon to get finer control of the final pressure. Did you know that gauges at the big box stores can be off as much as 10% full travel (that means your 200 PSI gauge can be off +/- 20 PSI). Out of the final regulator into the airbrush. I tweek the final regulator as needed for the painting conditions seen (temperature, humidity, paint mix). Currently using a Badger 360 Omni. That brush allows either gravity or siphon feed. I prefer gravity feed over siphon feed. My current paint favorite is Vallejo Model Air (acrylic), but I do ColorCoats (enamel) often.
With a tank compressor it makes noise while the tank fills, then shuts off and uses the stored air in the tank. Only a brief discomfort.
With a shop compressor I can disconnect it from the brush system and take it to the garage and air the tires or blow up an air mattress, or power an air nailer. The air flow is suffcient to use an air-powered die grinder handle. It is not a uni-tasker like a dedicated airbrush compressor.
Stay away from the small diaphram type compressors, especially the emergency tire inflators. Air pressure is catch-as-catch-can and the output pulses. A longer hose may mitigate the pulsing but you will still notice it in your work
Yep, according to the documentation, it has a throughput of 0.5CFM @ 20PSI
I have one much like it, probably identical really, cos I’m sure they’re OEM’d for many resellers (mine came from Aldi). If paired with a gravity feed brush there shouldn’t be any issues because it’ll be typically 20PSI or less, but yeah, with a Paasche H (or even a VL) it’d struggle.
What he said. Nothing wrong g with trying different paint brands. Just thin with paint brand’s thinner.
Lots of good suggestions here already, and here’s my two cents. I’ve used a Paasche VL for decades, replacing needles and tips as required. It still works fine, but is less useful for modelling than it’s newer cousin, the gravity feed Talon. I bought the Talon set with three needle/tip sizes plus a “spray head” for broad coverage, and have been very happy with it. As others have said, Don Wheeler’s site is an excellent source of knowledge and reviews.
As far as compressors go, I have several shop uses for my 30 gal. heavy duty unit. For model painting, I run a secondary air regulator with a gauge that reads lower pressures and a moisture trap. This allows me to dial in the pressure much more accurately than the gauge on the compressor itself. I realize not everyone can or would want to use a shop grade air supply - if I had to choose a “hobby” compressor I would look at the ones offered by the airbush manufacturers and dealers.
Happy modelling!
Mike
What came of this anyway Tankluver, have you rectified anything yet ?
did some research and bought myself a Paasche D500sr and a talon airbrush. It came yesterday and i used the ammo mig modulation set to paint the Otto carius Tiger I. It came out nicely but i was still figuring out the best setting for how to paint. I’m starting to get the hang of it now.
That’s great ! You’ll catch on soon enough. Think thin on your paints and go from there. Do some tests. . And clean your airbrush well, on acrylics I like to follow up my cleaning with shooting some straight alcohol through it.
yes I spent about an hour last night just trying to take apart and clean my airbrush after i painted. Also turns out i was using Vallejo paint thinner all along but had used the retarder intermitently. I honestly think it was the compressor being to weak for a suction brush.
Lately I’ve been spraying MM enamels and just flush good with lacquer thinner. Acrylics are tougher though if they harden inside there now you got trouble. I find most of the gunk right at the tip, and maybe a little on the needle.
How do you like the Talon, I assume it’s a TG ?
When I use my VJ paints I just use distilled water. It works for me and is alot cheaper than VJ thinner.
When you clean VJ, do not use alcohol. Bad, very bad results. I spray windex, then laquer thinner, windex again, repeat 'til it’s clean, then finish off with distilled water. And as has become habit, I break down the thing completely and clean it…usually.
Yeah I’m Stiller’s xperimenting with everything. Today i used Vallejo thinner with its black primer on another model and it started bubbling out of the top of where you put the paint. Could this be because of a bad mix ratio or is it another problem. I didn’t have to mix anything in with the ammo mig paint sets i used last night. It sprayed just fine
edit: how much of a bend if any should a needle have, this Is my first time using an airbrush like this I’m hoping i didn’t accidentally bend the needle last night when reassembling it
I think you know the answer to the needle but anyway, there should be no bend. However, I had a bent needle for my 200 and straightened it quite well in a few minutes. A little bending back and test rolling on a flat surface, a bit more bending till it rolled true and it has worked fine. Depends where the bend is, mine was mid shaft, a tip bend might be another story. You can order spares though for the next time if need be. Actually amazon has them I believe…
Bubbles coming up into the cup is the nozzle is closed off not allowing paint to flow through. actually spraying acrylics it’s common to get tip dry as your paint job progresses along, just stiop and take some thinner and clean off the tip, you can probably see the goober on the tip. This is why I like retarder in my mix, it help greatly towards reducing tip dry, so can flow aid. Or else a paint passage to the nozzle. My bet is on tip dry if you were painting fine then it started screwing up.
As I said about thinning, think milk and go from there, lol.
I’ll try some retarder then. It was backing up and bubbling out, i honestly think the mix ratio was off a bit. Also what do the different sized needles do? Is one better for acrylics and the other enamels?
Clean your tip before you do anything.
You must have bought the set then with different needles and nozzles/spray heads ? How many needles and air caps do you have in the set ? These are used in matched sets.
The set to use depends on what you are trying to do and how you thin the paint.
I just have a basic set up with whatever they sent me in the talon box
You asked about different needle sizes, do you have 1 needle or more than one needle that came with your airbrush ?
Here watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwIOtU5oiLA