My Love/Hate Relationship With The Airbrush

[quote user="Real G"

And these guys are the big American Cockroaches, yes the kind you find in the garbage and sewers.  The weather here is warm all year round, so they are a backyard fixture, hiding in rock and CMU walls by day and roaming the yard at night.  We call them “B-52s”, after the famous Boeing bomber, not the 80’s new wave band.  Kate Pierson would have hated the ones that head for your hair!

 

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Not to get off of the topic, but I have a story. A few years ago my wife and I stayed at a mansion in Fort Meyers that had been converted into a hotel. My wife told me that she saw a mouse run into the closet. I opened the door and this giant roach the size of a mouse was looking at me. I wacked it a few times with my shoe and it just sat there looking at me. Finally I disposed of it. I went to the concierge to complain about the roach. He told me that the locals call them "steel heads" because the shells are so hard. "The only way to kill it is to flip it over and crush its belly." I said thanks and immedietly went to the bar and had two shots of Wild Turkey.

JohnnyK

Not to get off of the topic, but I have a story. A few years ago my wife and I stayed at a mansion in Fort Meyers that had been converted into a hotel. My wife told me that she saw a mouse run into the closet. I opened the door and this giant roach the size of a mouse was looking at me. I wacked it a few times with my shoe and it just sat there looking at me. Finally I disposed of it. I went to the concierge to complain about the roach. He told me that the locals call them "steel heads" because the shells are so hard. "The only way to kill it is to flip it over and crush its belly." I said thanks and immedietly went to the bar and had two shots of Wild Turkey.

They are so commonplace here in Florida, they have their own cute euphameism. "Palmetto Bug".

I didn't know they were also prolific in Hawaii, but I guess that makes sense.

You could be a writer, RealG, you crack me up.

Thanks Greg, but I’m just describing what I occasionally go through while painting - honest!

”Steelheads”!  Never had a run in with them.  The Hawaii roaches are big and soft from all those plate lunches and fruit punch (the unofficial State drink).  Would Steelheads be the type seen in “Damnation Alley”?  Another roachy movie.  And arguably the most chilling to me, especially when they started boiling out of the department store!

Sorry to keep derailing the thread, but I just remembered a bug more horrifying than a Steelhead - the giant waterbug!  I have never seen one in the wild, but a flying aquatic bug that can bite hard, suck the juices out of fish and tadpoles, and looks like a big dead cockroach is top bug in my book!

Back to airbrushes - so yeah, try thinking soothing, non-cockroachy thoughts as you lovingly clean the parts.  Think of the wonderful painting session that just ended, and be happy.  Happy.  Happy...  And no cockroaches.........

Airbrushing is my favorite part of modeling. Seriously. :-) I really don't mind tearing my airbrushes down to clean them. I do it a lot when I'm painting. Maybe I'm just odd. Lol When I mainly built cars I used a Badger 360 all the time. Use a bottle for larger stuff and the small cup for Alclad and details. So, I kept an airtight Rubbermaid container full of either Purple Power or Castrol Super Clean to drop my bottles and caps in when I was finished. Let them soak for a while and a good rinse was all they really needed. Keep an old toothbrush handy for stubborn stuff and a pipe cleaner to run through the suction tube in the caps. I don't know, I got used to it. I really don't mind cleaning multiple times during a painting session. Tony