Coarse Paint Coverage

I think I know what happened. Read this:

If you turn your air pressure down and pull your airbrush away from your model’s surface, you will probably end up with a grainy paint finish.

The Aztek has a very thin and soft air hose that's quite generous in lenght. This was constantly trying to get under my knees as I was kneeling over the model and spraying. I think I have accedently pinned the hose down under my knees reducing air pressure for a moment and causing the grain.

could be straight pigments... just use 1000+grit sandpaper LIGHTLY and it will be fine. another thing: is it at a 90 degree angle from something else? if so the paint might be bouncing off the other thing onto teh turret and drying in the air, leaving a grainy surface

Since your airbrush connects directly to the compressor, I assume you don't have a moisture trap either. Could have been a drop of water got atomized along with the paint.

Is it possible the paint and thinner were not mixed well enough and you happened to have a mixture of a lot of thinner go through the airbrush at that one point causing it to dry more quickly?

Mike

I own a couple of compressors, the one I'm using right now is a Testors model that connects directly to my Aztek aibrush without any pressure regulator. The default pressure that compressor produces is pretty low actually; I estimate 15psi at the most.

I'm very curious about this problem because other than the fraction of a second when this coarse coat was produced today's spraying session was perfect for both the Tamiya Green and the Future Acrylic that followed. Perfect coats; on the entire tank hull, turret sides and so on.

High pressure can also do that.

Mike