New Airbrusher needs assitance

darth_trader wrote:

How do you decide how much paint is enough for a model?  How do you mix the enamel/thinner?  Do you use some kind of measuring device to get accurate ratios?  I'm using MM enamels.  Any help would be greatly appreciated

Although I like hard, fast rules as much as anyone, it seems that with airbrushing, it does come down a lot to just painting to get experience.

As far as how much paint, I really never use bottles because they simply hold so much paint as to be really wasteful.  Hopefully, you got a metal color cup with your Paasche H (an excellent airbrush incidentally).  I find that if I fill my color cup perhaps halfway or so with thinned paint will do a pretty good job on a 1/35 tank which is probably roughly equivalent to the top or bootom of a 1/48 aircraft.  It's surprising how little paint you use when airbrushing.  After thinning paint, never put it back ito the original bottle as the excess thinner will spoil the entire bottle.

Figuring the mix ratio is another thing that you just have to do by eye.  Typically, I use a large tooth pick or bambbo skewer to transfer paint into my color cup on drop at a time.  A skewer gives large drops, and ten to twenty will go a long way.  I then use a Testor's pipette to add as many drops of thinner as are needed to reduce the paint for proper airbrushing.  It's a matter of eyeballing it until it looks right.  With a bit of experience, you'll get the feel of it.

General rule of thumb is to add enough thinner to give the paint the consistency of 2% milk.  What does that mean, scientifically?  Not much really. 

I usually pour some paint into a dixie cup (about a 1/4") and then add a few drops of thinner.  Stir it and check the conistency.  I put a few drops on the inside of the cup, near the top, and watch it run down.  I look for it roll down smoothly (and consistantly) and leave an opaque trail.  If it rolls too quick, it's overthinned.  If it's too slow, not thin enough.  After awhile, you can pretty much eyeball it.

Just experiment with some different ratios until you get something that sprays nice and even.

-Fred

Good questions. I don't know that there are specific answers, but I'l tell you what I do. For a 1/35 scale armor project, I've found that a 15 ml paint cup on one of my gravity feed AB's is usually enough to get a good base coat on a model. Depending on the base color, I may have to refill a few ml's in the cup to get complete coverage. If it's a color that you will use several times, then simply mix more and keep the rest in a air tight bottle. You will use it in time.

As for paints, I use mostly Tamiya acrylics. I don't use a precise measuring method and try for at least 50/50 thinner to paint. If I err, I err on the side of a little more thinner than paint. I prefer to add several very light coats of paint rather than try and get it on too fast. The good thing about this approach is that if your color is wrong, or something else doesn't go right, you can re-do it without any stripping. I tend to take the same approach with MM enamels - about a 50/50 ratio, tending to a little more thinner, though I only use them about 20% of the time.