New Old guy, into Vietnam era & WWII aircraft and certain cars.

Sling1948

Well, I dug all the models out and decided to start building. Started with 69 Camaro. What I really have problems with is learning to use my Badger 150 airbrush properly. I have a great work area, a paint booth, and a good compressor. 

Welcome to the forum, Sling!  I look forward to seeing that build.

As far as your airbrush goes, I can't offer any specific advice, but general advice to read the manual, if there is one, and to practice, practice, practice.  I have a Paasche VL, and that's pretty much what I did to get more familiar with the brush and the process. I needed the hands-on work with it.

Hope to see some pictures soon!

Best regards,

Brad

the Baron

Sling1948

Well, I dug all the models out and decided to start building. Started with 69 Camaro. What I really have problems with is learning to use my Badger 150 airbrush properly. I have a great work area, a paint booth, and a good compressor. 

 Welcome to the forum, Sling!  I look forward to seeing that build.

As far as your airbrush goes, I can't offer any specific advice, but general advice to read the manual, if there is one, and to practice, practice, practice.  I have a Paasche VL, and that's pretty much what I did to get more familiar with the brush and the process. I needed the hands-on work with it.

Hope to see some pictures soon!

Best regards,

Brad

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice............

Hello Sling!

If you like Vietnam stuff, then maybe you would like to check out mmy web page: www.vietnam.net.pl I'd appreciate your comments! If I can help with modelling questions just post hem here! Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

Hello and welcome aboard 

Welcome aboard.  I look forward to seeing your builds.

Hi Sling! Welcome to the Forums! Happy to have you with us.

As was said above "Practice, practice" is the best way. If you have problems/questions, just ask. Great bunch here with lots of knowledge and experience and willing to help. I've been building for 76 of my 82 years and I've learned a lot here and I'm still learning.

My favorites are WWI & WWII planes followed by Sailing Ships. 

Stay safe.

Jim 

Welcome!  I'm new here also, just getting back into the hobby after a long absence.  To me, the main difference nowadays is the mind-blowing amount of information here on this forum and also other forums and websites.  I have received a lot of good info that I put to use in my current build (Me-262).  Not only do I need to practice my airbrushing skills, but also using putty, sanding, etc.

The following tips I picked up in this forum have worked well for me so far: 1. Tamiya extra thin liquid cement is easy to use and very neat; 2. Bondo red glazing and spot putty is great for filling larger gaps and depressions, it can also be thinned with lacquer thinner for easier application; 3. Vallejo plasatic putty is great for thin gaps, especially when near panel lines, rivets, etc.  I masked off the areas where I didn't want putty, and just applied it with the very skinny applicator.  Then used a toothpick and a damp q-tip to scrape and wipe off the excess.  Only a very light sanding was required after the putty dried, and I don't have to rescribe any panel lines in those areas; 4. Sometimes rescribing cannot be avoided, I got the UMM SCR-03 scribing tool, so far it is working great.

Almost ready to start airbrushing.  The overall camouflage on the upper surfaces should be OK, I have done that before.  But the smaller mottled spots/squiggles on the sides are a concern.  Just going to to spray at low pressure and hope for the best.  For panel line accent, I got some styrene sheets and practiced pre-shading with poor results, gonna pass on that for now.  Probably gonna try some light post-shading with Tamiya gray acrylic thinned with IPA at very low pressure.

Good luck on your builds, I hope to see your photos soon!

Welcome!

I can't offer any advice specific to your Badger (I use Iwata airbrushes), but I would suggest that if you have a kit you know you will not complete, rather than throwing it out, build it enough to be used as a spray dummy.  You can then test out various spraying patterns and such on a model so you'll know exactly how to approach the painting for the model you are practicing for.

Coming from a Nobie returning, regarding the airbrush. I've worked small scale for many years and recently went back to models in metal and plastic. I used an airbrush many years ago prior to social media and at the time learning to use it was relegated to books on the subject. We are fortunate to have forums and YouTube to learn from. However, you will run into issues. Practice is vital IF you are doing it correctly. As a former commercial pilot, I had to practice keeping my skills sharp, but my instructor came to me one day and said i was doing something wrong that I thought was ok. YouTube has many great videos on the airbrush, but I found where many of them were leaving out several details that as a returning former painter i discovered on my own that were causing me grief. Firstly, using the correct paint and thinner for the model I had to scour to find this topic. Second, using the wrong combination of paint and thinner was clogging the air flow which caused me to have to break down the tool and clean it out. Also, I needed to find out the best method of cleaning without damaging the threads and any seals that could be damaged. A point I found the hard way was if you find really small part that need removing and cleaning the part will fall and roll twenty feet away using antigravity to move so find a safe place to clean it and be sure you use some kind of method that if it drops it won't go anywhere.  As I said I am new at this too so I'm certainly no expert, but I did find myself asking the same thing as you did.

Welcome aboard, Sling! Hope you enjoy your time here.

Forum member Don Wheeler has an 'airbrush tips' website that I've found quite useful over the years. There are reviews of various brush models and a lot of great practical info on learning to use and maintain your AB. Best of all for your situation, perhaps, he actually uses Badger brushes almost exclusively. I seem to recall he's a Badger Anthem fan...like myself. (That's their #155 model, just a slightly refined version of the basic #150 design.)

Well worth checking out. Also, if you have any specific questions, you can always float them here. There's a fairly vast pool of talent and experience in this forum -- and strangely, it's not too hard to get us yakking about our favorite hobby....

Cheers

 Thank everyone for the nice welcome. I think I'm figuring out what my problems have been with the air brush, I don't think I was mixing the paint thin enough. I have also been playing with Acrylic and enamel paints, obviously not together. Painted the Camero yellow with acrylic paint and just don't like how the color came out, it was smooth, but had shadows in it. Like many of you have said, practice, practice and I know you are all right. 

My first aircraft was the Gruman S2, well I was stuck in a P2 squadron for a very short time, a terrible airplane. I know everyone wants to be a fighter pilot but chasing subs around the Pacific was fun. 

I finally found a kit I have been looking for, 1965 GTO, was my uncles car and he practically gave it to me. He was a gunner on a destroyer in the Pacific during WWII. I want to build that kit in memory of him. 

I'll post a picture of what I'm working on when I feel it is worthy of this forum.