Hi all. I want to hear from y’ll about what you use for painting. I have 2 airbrush’s and a lot of paint brush’s. I hardley use my airbrush’s becouse I have to clean them hehe. Will what I am asking in so meny words is " Do you use your airbrush to paint all of your model and I am not talking about the “Very Small” parts let’s see and I know I am typing a lot but I want to get this across. Do you paint you cockpit sets with a airbrush or Paint brush ? and so on and so on.
Hmmm I hope I am getting this across right to y’ll.
Bud - I paint everything I can with the airbrush, I assemble all the like colored pieces of the cockpit and spray them as sub-units, from there I immediately go to the cockpit sidewalls and gear wells if need be.
To make this short the only things I don’t airbrush is the detail parts like controls stick handles etc… everything else is airbrushed as it is easier and at least in my case, looks better!
How do you clean your airbrush? It doesn’t take me long at all to do it… maybe we can help you shorten your ordeal! [;)]
The 2 airbrush’s I have are old 1s and they have like 10 small parts to take apart and clean. I am thinking about getting a Testors. Does anyone have a good idea on 1 that does not have a hundred small parts to clean
Right now I use spray can’s and brush’s. I want to get back into using a airbrush.
And help on this and how to use 1 pleaseeeeeeee fell free to reply to this.
I use water wash up paint. Would that work in a airbrush ? If so maybe that would be easyer to clean up.
Bud… if you are looking for an easy to clean airbrush, I can recommend several that won’t break your pocket book but are good airbrushes…
The Iwata HP-CR, the Omni 4000 both come to mind for general spraying with some detail capability for when you get better at airbrushing. The Testor airbrushes in my experience are actually HARDER to clean than the two mentioned. there are quite a few more good brushes but a gravity fed brush is easier to clean than a siphon fed in my experience. (the brush and cup are one piece, as you shoot the thinner of your choice through it cleans both at once)
Look at www.dixieart.com and either brush is about $65.00, and with free shipping you can’t go wrong!
I use almost 100% acrylic paint (water wash up as you put it) and I currently have the Iwata HP-CR and HP-CS, the Omni 4000 is also a good brush as I have seen the results from my fellow modelers here and am impressed. Any of those can handle the acrylics…
I’ll give you a brief example of me cleaning my gravity feed brushes:
- Spray model
- Pour out any extra paint
- put thinner in cup and wipe out any residue paint, pour out any left over thinner
- put more clean thinner in and spray through at 40psi or so, once the spray comes out clear, backflush (hold your finger over the tip and give a short blast with the air) then spray the rest out
- wipe out cup again
- flush with distilled water (this is only necessary when using acrylics with windex as your cleaner)
- dry cup
- go on to next paint color or put up airbrush till tomorrow
That’s it! about every week or two I put the head and tip through the ultrasonic cleaner… if you don’t have one just put them in a shot glass of lacquer thinner, let soak 30 min and then rinse and put back on. That simple!
hope this helps! If you have any more questions feel free to ask!
Thanks Tom for the tips, it all helps. But you said in your last reply " clean thinner " I thought if I used acylic paint I could just use water to clean up, Hmmmmm I guess not.
I will look into the brushs you said and again thank you
oh water is a thinner, (it will thin acrylics) but to clean up I use plain old windex… it cuts right through any paint and cleans it out in no time! That might speed ya up a bit… just buy the generic stuff at the grocery store that’s about 99 cents a bottle… then just spray a tad of water through afterwards to get the windex out…
I have been looking at this airbrush and I found this web site but I can’t read it. What I wanted to know is this how you would have to clean this airbrush ?
Actually that link is more on how to fix an Aztek without having to send it back to Testor’s for warranty replacement. As an Aztek owner (and former Aztek user) and now a Badger and Paasche owner and user, I would second Mike’s suggestion.
Azteks are marketed as easy to clean, but bascially their instructions have you clean by spraying thineer through the airbrush after use. Well you can clean your conventional airbrush the same way, so for basic cleaning, there is no advantage to the Aztek. On the other hand if you really do need to clean the needle and tip, a conventional airbrush is designed to be disassembled whereas the Aztek tips need to be pried apart, so for a thorough cleaning a conventional airbrush is actually a tad easier.
This was my first air brush and if we lived close I’d give you this one free… Go with the other one’s as said above or a badger, anything but this one! Take the same money you’d pay for this junk and you can buy a really good A/B and you’ll save money!..
Everyone has problems with this one! It spits and sputter’s … It cleans as the others do excipt its Plastic Junk!! Take an hour and go through these Painting forums and find the posts on the aztec, read the coments on them…Don’t waste your money please!!.. You’ll be so much happier with anything else… Dixieart.com as said above is the best online store you’ll find and free shipping you cant beat it, bearair.com too, both good…I’ve sence bought two from Dixieart and one from bearair.com all Badgers! I got the 360, the Badger 100 LG and the 200-20…single action… Oh yea, I picked up a Paashe H on a card at bearair too for $20.00 that I’ve never used …I got my aztec from a LHS owner that knew I was a sucker soon as I went into to his store…He knew I was a easy mark and I left $300.00 on his counter, $90.00 for the airbrush $80.00 for the testers little blue compressor…Witch by the way Id be giving it to you too if we lived close… ha,ha…Their both junk!..The rest of the money went on Models and Model Master Acrylic Paint which is right there with the testers compressor and aztec A/B too…I should have known there was something wrong! He was selling the paint “Buy One! get Two free!” You’d be getting a bunch of freebe paint too! Sorry Testers but I don’t like em!..But I do know of Two people who do love theirs…Sorry to run the one youve got your eye on down or bust your chops on it, but you’ll be sorry you ever bought it…“RC”
OK as I said in the beinging of all this . I have 2 OLD airbrush’s both are Badgers, the 150 and the 350-1-M. Does anyone know anything about them ? That’s why I was asking about airbrush’s these are old and thought I needed something newer.
I personally think the 150 if still good is perfectly fine. I think masking and airbrushing the handle for the control stick in 1/48 scale is over-doing it, even though I have airbrushes that really can handle detail jobs like that.
It also does depend on what kind of models you build though. You can look into a 100 since they share the same parts/airhose and the 100 being gravity feed for lower pressure finer detail painting. A lot of guys here use it, including me with my 100LG and 100SG (and other iwata stuff. =P ).
I use a 150 and it works fine, as long as the tip and needle are in good shape you should be good to go. It can’t handle miniscule detail due to being a siphon feed, but good enough for the models I hang out with!
I am trying to sneak a 100G or LG under the wife’s radar, but she’s just upgraded it and now has GPS tracking co-ordinated with the major courier co’s so it might be a while…
This is why I like my Badger 360, its both gravity or bottom feed, I have Medium needle’s and tip’s in all my A/B’s, I only use acrylic paint’s… I use hand brushes with enamel’s for shading figures and some weathering not much…I’m not good at weathering, but I’m learning with Video’s… You might want to invest in a few Video’s… I have "Intro to airbrushing with Mark Rush from Bear Air… And a few I’ve bought from www.bearair.com I got “How to build & paint military figures” from Kalmbach Publishing that I watch over and over again when learning/working in the kitchen on my military figures so I can do them right… I can’t see the TV, in here, I need one in here by my work table… I got a few on painting flames and a couple of others from bearair… I believe if you take some old models and start using your airbrushes on them and practising on them that once your use to using it you will be at ease painting with them instead of the old stand by the hand brush…youve got two good A/B’s… The 350 is good for over all painting of frames and bodys, You can adjust it on the outside under the tip by turning the adjustment on the needle for broad or finer areas being its a single action… That 150 is great for everything else you’ll want to do…both are fine A/B’s…Might need to be rebuilt if their really old and havent been taken care of, the needle’s may be bent or damaged from taking them apart so much, if its been dropped, etc…Needles and tips are much cheaper than buying new one’s unless you really just want something new to work with… You do not have to take these A/B’s all apart to clean them Everytime you paint with them, as was said above on cleaning, its fast, just running windex thru and flushing with “Distilled water”…then wiping it down will do …reread his post to you and about cleaning and always use distilled water … Don’t use tap water or any other water with acrylics, Only “Distilled water” as a paint thinner or for cleaning your A/B…Thats all you want to use, its only .80 cents a gallon at your store at most! I only use distilled water to clean All my brush’s, Air or regular paint brushes too… Just “Practise, practise, practise!”… Thats what my buddy told me when I got back into modeling and started painting with a airbrush a little over a year and a half ago…I’m no expert by any means. I’m passing on whats been told to me…Good luck & have fun doing it!..“RC”
The 100LG would be a wise move if you have the 150… get one with the fine needle and tip and get an extra medium needle and tip for it… then you’ll have a spare needle for the 150 should it need one too!
The 150 will still have its uses… the 100LG will provide you the fine detail ability you’d need for freehand camo and stuff…
www.Bearair.com is selling the 100LG for $61.40 but are out of stock at this time and don’t know about shipping and handling charges…How ever www.dixieart.com is selling theirs for $64.95 with No shipping and handling charges…And its in Stock!..
What about a Air Compresser? do you have a Air Compressor too? Do you know what air pressure to use to use your airbrush’s?..
