Advice on Airbrush & Compressor
 

Looking for advice from your experiences in starting to paint with airbrushes.

1/ What airbrush do you recommend to start?
2/ What Compressor to use, with tank to keep consistent pressure?
3/ Would you use a separate airbrush for the for wider coverage, backing black or white?
4/ Recommended paints, liquid masks?

Any information would be great. I feel the need to put my Art CSE to use :woot:

Hi mate,

I am looking at getting airbrush & compressor also and the compressor that seems to be the best on the market is Iwata, as for the airbrush I’m just going to get a cheap £20/£30 airbrush. Not going to spend a lot on airbrush as I’ve heard the cheapest ones work fine for painting RC shells..
Liquid mask I have heard good things about bittydesign
https://www.modelsport.co.uk/index.p...BoCArEQAvD_BwE

Createx paints is the way to go too.

Hope this helps a little as I don’t have to much of a clue really, it’s only
What I have found out over the last week or so of looking.

Good luck ��

Hi Matt. It's something i have wanted to do for a long long while. But due to work and lige getting in the way never got there! While in lockdown things have been put in perspective. So a bit more me time and do the things I've always wanted to do. Yhis being one of them. Good luck in your journey 😎

I started off with a very cheap brush set up and it is true, you can paint with it, but when I switched to Iwata I saw a big difference in brush performance and smoothness. The biggest issue with the cheap brush was irregular flow - thinning down the paint makes a big difference and certainly the opaque colours such as blacks / whites need letting down more.
Most airbrushes tend to be 0.3 and for really detailed skilled work they are probably best, but I have to say I prefer my 0.5mm needles as I find them more forgiving. That said, I am not an expert or a professional.
I actually tend to use 2 brushes, a suction fed brush with black/white in a bottle for good coverage / backing and then my gravity fed that I just mix small amounts of colour in the cup and flush between.
Liquid mask, I use RCS and it is great. Only issue I have ever had was with some Vallejo LM as it wouldn’t cut with a scalpel (was like dragging a spoon over a balloon)
Paints - createx works well. I have also used hobbynox, (cheaper) but it takes much more shaking and mixing as it seems to settle out. Ok if you put the effort in, but less easy to use.

Funny enough that’s exactly what happened to me and probably most of us that are into this hobby, life just gets in the way as always lol 😆.
I’ve always used spray cans and love the finish I get but getting a airbrush is on another level that’s for sure.

Good luck to you to Stegger mate.

Nice1

Options are a small hobby/paint compressor to run indoors or a larger one for the garage, and pipe it to where you are painting.
You can get a really decent large compressor for ~£100 which with a local regulator and moisture filter you can get full control at your painting station and silence when the compressor is running, as its out the way.
I run an Iwata studio jet pro twin compressor now as I came by a cheap used one, but I started with a 50litre compressor that I keep in the garage and used a long air hose to get it where i needed it. The advantage of this is that i can use it to clean my cars, and pump tyres and use air tools. I prefer the external compressor tbh, as the smaller indoor compressor runs for longer and the tank fill doesn't last as long.

I'd recommend an Iwata Eclipse HP-CS for starters. It's a buy once tool and will do everything, and you will get your money back if you ever want to sell it.

Createx (from https://www.smdesigns.co.uk/) or proline paint from Modelsport are the best paints to use.

For liquid mask get a HVLP gun, no more than £20.

This any good then?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-6-HP-Ai...oAAOSw8WpdUoCr

that will be fine.

That all sounds really familiar to me too. I picked up all my kit about a year ago, have done a few shells now and having lots of fun with it!
I went for the 1/3hp TC90T Compressor which can supply the 3.5 bar pressure bittydesign recommend to apply their liquid mask using a 1.4mm hvlp gun. I got the Hobbynox Flow-TF Airbrush Top Feed airbrush which came with 0.3, 0.5, 0.8 nozzel sets. I've only used 0.5 so far. No thinning required - easy. There are definitely nicer airbrushes but I wouldn't be able to tell the difference and this one has worked well for me so far. Best of luck with your projects!

Update!!

So today i had my compressor delivered, no going back now! :woot::woot:

https://i.postimg.cc/JhRH2SKC/20200618-160151.jpg


Airbrush's!!!

So i have decided to go with the:-

#HN002-00 - Hobbynox Flow-TF Airbrush Top Feed 0.3/0.5/0.8mm for my 1st brush

For ease of use i am about to order a HVLP for applying LM (Liquid Mask) and also for backing paint.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KKmoon-0-...eb67a37b320981

Question on this, am i best going for the 1.0mm HVLP as required for the LM?
Would this also be good for applying the backing paint?

Thanks all :thumbsup:

All in then...

1.0mm is fine. I have the 8.0mm, which is also fine for LM.