How many airbrushes do you use?

ScaleModeler_1973

Oh, one follow up question that I have about siphon fed single action airbrushes: I have been using a gravity fed airbrush (cup on the top), and I am wondering with a siphon fed, do you end up 'wasting' more paint because the bottom of the jar can't be reached by the tube? I guess if so, this is a minor consideration. Put differently, I am not clear on how the paint goes upward through the tube (is it powered by the air flow when I pulll the trigger on my airbrush)? Just trying to picture how a siphoon fed airbrush works.

 

I strip the needle out of my H about twice a year or if I change tip sizes which is rare.I just make sure I really flush and back flush good with lacquer thinner for solvent paints or warm water and a squirt of fantastik or other detergent and follow up with alcohol then a water rinse for acrylics. The back flushing is key. But I really like that ultrasonic idea too. The thing is I shoot in the kitchen, the kitchen sink is right there next to my spray area so done deal for me.

The passages are quite large on an H and I spray mostly acrylics these days.

A single stage compressor with no tank will keep up with an H with the #1 tip fine, the #3 tip if you don't crank the pressure over 25 psi. Forget the #5 tip but you don't really need that anyway. Most airbrushes today are restricted on airflow, people don't realize this. It's something like 30psi, so you can crank your air up to 50 psi and it will only blow 30 anyway. But an H is unrestricted. So there is that. I mostly shoot my H with a #3 between 20 and 30 psi. If doing a wash or lacquer it's set lower butr I'm more likely to be using a different brush anyway, probably the 200. The 200 with side cup mounted rather than bottle will flow thin material at 10 psi. It's very miserly on air with that fine tip and lower pressure settings ( usually 18psi or less).

If using jars hanging off the bottom of a siphon brush figure on bumping up your pressure 2-3lb more than you're used to. The metal side cup is less affected....

Thinning paint more is generally the key to good patterns and takes less pressure to move the paint. This is a matter of vicosity more than ratio ( a drop of paint fromyour cup set on the side of the cupnshould flatten out and return to the pool of paint below in 1-3 seconds, if it just sits there on the side or barely migrates down you got an issue with viscosity, simple huh ? Frig the ratio but once you know a paint you can determine ratio for that paint then if you're a ratio nut). Any airbrush will always flow water or thinner alone beautifully. If your paint is too thick now it doesn't do that so well ? So the take away ? Thin your paint, that's why we have thinner........ Use a flow aid agent in your acrylic paints and a bit of retarder, flow aid does as it says aids flow lol. The retarder stops tip dry. For me that becomes part of my thinner solution, then when I thin my paint it's already in my thinner so I don't even think about it. Flow aid is a less is more thing. I use Liquitex, you can also use a trace element of dish soap. But again with flow aid never think more is better but rather less is better. You only need enough to break surface tension. But I make my own thinners for the most part too, so the amounts needed or even if needed in commercial thinners varies ( most need some).

I use two a iwata neo with a .05 needle, and a paasche with a .035 needle. 

oldermodelguy

But I really like that ultrasonic idea too.

Yup.  I just put a little water into the cleaner tub to help the sound waves get to the jar a little better and away it goes.  Also found that MEK is actually friendlier to the chrome plating on the airbrush parts than some of the other cleaners I have used for acrylics.

ScaleModeler_1973

I didn't make the connection that a double action is harder to use than a single one: I just thought that it is a stylistic decision as to which one a hobbyist chooses to use.

For me the biggest advantage to the single action is being able to set the line width that the airbrush is spraying and then just focus on hand control and putting the paint where I want it, especially with camouflage patterns. Of course this assumes that your paint thinning, additives, air pressure etc. is at the point that you are not getting clogs, sputtering or other problems. And that is where time and practice come into play big time.

Actually the Badger Renegade Velocity that I enjoy using has an adjustable "needle stop" that makes it function like a single action airbrush. I am the first to admit that this is a big crutch that a skilled double action airbrush user doesn't need but it works for me. I may someday gain enough experience to migrate away from needle stops, but maybe not lol.

Inserted below is a link that includes a LOT of info on how an airbrush works and what is available. Paul Budzik can get pretty technical but I am enough of a nerd that I enjoy that stuff and his material is always polished and very well presented. I think the things that helped me most out of this entire website were the cutaway views of the airbrush and the animations that showed how air and paint flow in the airbrush. Those are contained in the video that you access by clicking on the "Choosing the Right Airbrush for Scale Modeling" link in the list of chapters near the top of the page. For me personally it really helped to understand what was going on inside my airbrushes. Others may not find it particularly intersting or useful, to each his or her own.

https://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/Airbrushing/airbrushing_for_modelers.html

Also, you mentioned possibly trying to strip paint on one of your armor models. Here is a link to one of the discussions on the FSM forum regarding various paint stripping methods...

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/178454.aspx

One last thing about locating information on the FSM forums. Unfortunately the forum search engine is rarely successful. If you just use Google or your favorite search engine and tack on "Fine Scale Modeler" at the end of your search terms it will almost always produce good results. That is how I found the link for the paint removal discussion.

Good luck with your airbrushing adventures!

Sorry folks the second link quit working after I went back and edited the text at the start of my reply. After several attempts on two different machines I have not been able to fix itor add it in a new post as an active hyper link.

ScaleModeler_1973, I missed one of your last posts where you asked about stripping paint.  I always use 99% Isopropyl alcohol and a cheap electric toothbrush to strip paint.  If you can give your subject a bath in the alcohol, that works best, but it can also be done without the bath...just takes longer.  I know there are a lot of people out there using things like oven cleaner to do that, but that is a really bad idea.  The chemicals in oven cleaner will actually change the molecular structure of the plastic on your model and make it much more brittle.  Isopropyl alcohol has no such side effects and with a little effort, it will strip any paint off your model, right down to the bare plastic.  If you can't find 99%, lower concentrations will also work.  Also, avoid denatured alcohol, as it often has really nasty solvents such as MEK in it...they put those in there to make it taste bad so people won't drink it.  Don't want that stuff on your plastic.

Back to the bench

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/178454.aspx

Fixed it for ya, Gil.  I had the same trouble you were having a few weeks ago, so I just started manually adding the BB code tags around links instead of messing with the automatic ones the post editor generates.

Eaglecash867

Fixed it for ya, Gil.  I had the same trouble you were having a few weeks ago, so I just started manually adding the BB code tags around links instead of messing with the automatic ones the post editor generates.

Thanks Eaglecash867, I appreciate it!

I don't want to derail this thread but I am going to show one of my MANY areas of ignorance. I am pretty software/coding illiterate and I had never heard of a BB code tag. A little searching leads me to believe they may look something like this...

Am I correct in assuming that you manually inserted the brackets and text inside of the brackets around my broken link to fix things or am I way off base on this? As further proof of my ignorance I first tried just typing in the text instead of inserting the image above. The brackets and their contents did not appear in the post and I am assuming that is because the text editor recognized the BB codes? Again thanks for fixing the link. Also thanks in advance for any enlightenment you can spare and feel free to move this to the testing forum or elsewhere if you think it should be moved. Or feel free to ignore it too.

Gil,  for a web-site link, the BB code would look like this...just omit the spaces that I put in after the brackets...have to put those in there to trick it.

[ URL]web-site address[ /URL]

You can do the same thing for pictures too, where you use "IMG" in the place of "URL".

Eaglecash867

Gil,  for a web-site link, the BB code would look like this...just omit the spaces that I put in after the brackets...have to put those in there to trick it.

[ URL]web-site address[ /URL]

You can do the same thing for pictures too, where you use "IMG" in the place of "URL".

 

Thanks a bunch you answered while I was slowly pecking away at my edit

OK, thanks for sharing all of this additional information, especially about (safely) stripping paint from a model, properly thinning paint, and the benefits of using a single action airbrush. A couple of follow-up (newby) questions, what is MEK (is it a type of chemical ingredient)? Also, what does MRP stand for? (Is it a brand of paint?-I could not find it on Amazon, but maybe some online hobby stores sell this particular line?). One observation I made from reading your guys' posts and reflecting is that I am probably using too low pressure when I airbrush.... I typically use 10 to 12 psi, because I have had bad experience with flooding my models with too much paint with my early airbrushing when using higher psi:( I feel like I can 'control' the paint better at low psi (especially when trying to paint 'relief areas').  But it does leave more of a sort of 'grainier' finish to the paint as a tradeoff. I guess I am overcompensating with such low pressure-maybe I just need to move the airbrush faster (and should bump up the psi?). I think this is where experimentation and experience probably come into play (adjusting variables and making note of the effect they have on one's airbrushing). I've decided to buy a Paasche H airbrush. I am eager to give one a try using the guidance that you all have shared! (oh, and thanks for the tip about more effective searching for relevant posts online).

ScaleModeler_1973

what is MEK (is it a type of chemical ingredient)?

MEK stands for Methyl Ethyl Ketone.  Its an extremely powerful solvent that makes a great airbrush parts cleaner because it removes every type of paint I have run through my airbrush, so there's no guesswork as to what to use for what.  But, you have to be careful not to let it get on anything that is made out of plastic, it will melt it pretty much instantly.  In fact, a lot of people use it as plastic cement for putting their models together.  It can usually be found in most hardware stores.  I buy mine from a local aviation maintenance supplier.

MRP is the name used by a Slovakian manufacturer of a full line of high-quality acrylic lacquer paints.  They are also known as Mr. Paint, but they switched to MRP so they wouldn't be confused as often with the Mr. Hobby products from Gunze in Japan.  Sprue Brothers carries a really good stock of them, as does HobbyWorld USA.  Their airbrush-only line of paint is pre-thinned, so you just drop some in your airbrush color cup and start painting.  Cure time on these is amazing...under 1 hour to a rock-hard cure.  They also make brushable paints in their Aqua and Figure lines.  I started using them when I was looking for a replacement for the disappearing Model Master enamels (hated the Model Master Acryl paints).  Turns out they also had an amazing selection of paint colors for other country's militaries as well...lots of Russian colors.

On my Paasche H, I normally run between 20 and 25 PSI, mostly with the #1 needle.

I run my H between 20 and 35 psi but I have a 4.5 cfm 8 gal compressor so pressure isn't an issue even with the #5 tip set on there or a full size lvlp gun for that matter.. My 200 is single action siphon also and with bottles I run that beween 18 and 23 or so, with a cup 12-20 totally depending on the material being sprayed. I've even shot washes down around 8-10 psi with the side cup on there. Most acrylics like a bit more pressure.

Yesterday I was shooting Goldens High Flow acrylic at 30psi with the H. Came out awesome, just with the retarder in my thinner blend it took overnight for a good full dry. Today I put full 3/4" blue painters tape on there and yanked it off, nothing came with it. That was my test I was conducting. It is Paynes Grey, it's almost black blue when shot over dark colors or a strong dark blue shot over white but I want to use that as a secondary color on something thus testing the tape. If it holds up to abusive tape like that it will hold up fine to my model tapes which have about 1/3 the tack to them. But see that's key isn't it ? To test more than to paint, then when you paint you most often win.

oldermodelguy

If it holds up to abusive tape like that it will hold up fine to my model tapes which have about 1/3 the tack to them. But see that's key isn't it ? To test more than to paint, then when you paint you most often win.

Yup.  I use Dymo tape for testing like that...tape adhesive doesn't get much more aggressive than Dymo.  I just got tired of having paint failures during masking, so I dove into a pretty detailed surface prep and primer experimentation phase using Dymo tape for the torture test.  Don't have paint failures anymore.