What kind of Airbrush do I want?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I want to get my husband an airbrush for Christmas, but I have no idea what I’m looking for.

Backstory: My husband loves reading Make magazine and is always checking out various mods people have done to things like Palm Pilots, monitors, etc. For Halloween, he did a Steampunk thing and had so much fun taking a cheap kid’s “space gun” and turning into a wood and brass looking thing. The whole time he kept saying that if he had an airbrush, he’d be able to do this or that.

So I want to get him a hobbyist-level airbrush. Do I want to get the one where you put the paint in a well at the top, or a screw on jar? I don’t want to get a super-cheapie one that will cause more grief than it’s worth, but I don’t need a professional one. Do I need to get an air compressor separately? I don’t have a chance to get up to a hobby store to do some browsing any time soon.

I could just tell him to pick his own out, but I’d rather not. I do that all the time, and I’d like for him to actually have something to unwrap for once. :slight_smile:

2

I use an Iwata HP-B Plus gravity-feed airbrush. It’s superb for fine-detail work on small items with a .2 mm nozzle, but if he wants larger coverage, you’ll want something with a bigger reservoir and a larger nozzle. In any case, you don’t need a compressor, although having one will pay for itself through lower operating cost and/or greater convenience. The other options being disposable canned air (expensive) or an air tank you fill up with an off-site compressor such as at a gas station (inconvenient). You can pick up a small general-purpose compressor at most hardware and automotive stores for less than 50 bucks. These tend to be noisy when running, but they needn’t run continuously if they feature a storage tank–mine has a 2-gallon tank. The only caveat is that the compressor output needs an adjustable regulator valve to control the pressure since an airbrush needs to be feed less than 30-40 PSI to work correctly and fine detail work requires even lower pressures.

3

I use two Paasche VL’s for painting models- one is permanently set up with the medium tip and needle for base coats and the other one is set up with the fine tip and needle for detail work.

But you’ll need to think about these things before buying any airbrush-

how often is it going to be used?
-not so often, then you can can use an inexpensive AB and a can of propellant or spare tire adapter to run it (propellant cans are a PITA and expensive in the long run.)
-quite often and now you’ll want to invest in a decent quality AB and some kind of compressor to run it. This is generally the best option in the long run in terms of ease of use, investment and satisfaction.

what kind of paint is hubby going to use?
-most AB’s will blow any kind of paint if properly thinned and some, with sufficient air pressure, will blow thick, unthinned paints with ease.
-if you’re getting into lacquer paints, I’d advise staying away from any AB with a high plastic content.
-never use cheap paint! Testors, Tamiya, Gunze Sanyo and Vallejo all make outstanding hobby paints and all can be used in AB’s. Please don’t try to blow household latex or enamels through one.

fine line and detail work, or just the basic paint job?
-a single action AB is good for basic paint jobs (although the right single action AB and some experience can paint anything).
-a double action AB generally gives the most control over the results but has a steeper learning curve. The VL’s are double action and I can get a 1mm line if I am careful with the paint thinning and air pressure.

As for the gravity feed (the paint well on top) versus siphon feed (the underslung jar)… I have never used a gravity feed AB but I’ve heard positive things about them. Siphon feeders are easy to use but require a little bit more effort to clean up after use. A gravity feed AB requires one to hold the AB upright at all times- this might be a consideration.

FWIW, I got my first Paasche VL AB kit that included 3 different tips and needles, spare paint jars and other stuff from HobbyTown USA (I wish I could remember the ballpark price). I then spent an additional $80 for a 1 gallon air tank compressor from WalMart and added a $12 air pressure regulator (if hubby really gets in to AB’ing, then a regulator and a water trap are vital).
I bought the second VL directly from Paasche’s website for quite a savings.

When it comes to AB’s, the only names that I can think of, in order of price ranges, are Badger, Paasche and Iwata. There are others, I’m sure.

Spend some time searching online or at a hobby store to see what’s out there and decide how much you want to spend- like anything else, you can spend as much or as little as you like. But I would not recommend buying an expensive AB compressor- get a light duty home-use compressor with an airtank from WalMart or some such place and save a few $$. They can also be used to power air tools, industrial paint sprayers and inflate tires.

Compressors are loud- if noise might be an issue, then look into alternate air supply sources- propellant cans, spare tire adapters and nitrogen tanks.

I hope this helps!

4

Wow! Great info from both of you! I had no idea that you could just plug them into a can of compressed air for small things.

I love that I can come here, ask a vague question, and get more information than I even knew I needed. :smiley:

5

There might still be a particular door on the USS Nimitz that bears an airbrush creation of mine :cool:. They asked me to paint a sort of “Coat of Arms” design on the door of the Reactor Training department, and I did so, using standard black and yellow oil-based paint from the ship’s stores and using JP-5 jet fuel to thin it and clean my air brush.

I started out with one of those ones that you put little bottles of paint on and it was OK, but not optimal.
This is the same kitthat I bought 20 years ago, and it appears to still be the same price (around a hundred bucks). Interesting.

My current model is a Badger with a little hole in the side that a small silver cup fits into. It’s not horribly expensive – a notch below the fancier Paasche models, IIRC.
I like the small paint cup and the ability to rotate it differently.

I almost always use water-based fabric paints, for painting T-shirts. A few attempts at using model paint showed me that it is a substantial pain in the butt to deal with solvent-based paints, so that Nimitz job was my only real work done in solvent-based paint.

I have a small compressor that is meant for airbrush work. Its key selling point is that you don’t have to stop; just keep on working.
The down side is that the compressed air stream is not perfectly smooth: you get a slight ripple in the pressure, resulting in uneven spray in some delicate circumstances.

It’s kind of like the air pressure equivalent of 60hz hum.

But canned compressed air is probably not worth it since any decent amount of airbrush work will consume lots of air.

If you use a compressor, get a trap for the air line. This will trap any moisture coming down the line that would spray out of the air brush on to the work, resulting in much swearing.

Consider a few different needle sizes, depending on the kind of work. You need both a nozzle and a needle.
I second the recommendation of a double-action air brush. It allows you to adjust the flow as you paint. The Badger I referred to accomplishes this as such: you press the plunger to start air flow, and you rock the plunger rearward to increase paint flow.

6

They are not necessarily loud.
This is the one I bought with my first airbrush kit, and it is quiet enough to use in a kitchen or den without needing ear protection or annoying others in the general area. It sort of makes a quiet “put-put-put” sound. Even with the uneven air stream I mentioned above, I prefer it to a tank.

7

minor7flat5, I hate to say it, but that’s exactly the kind of compressor that I’d avoid recommending- I have an old one and it’s knockingly loud, has that pulsing air stream and no usable pressure unless I just want to blow dust around.

True, it doesn’t require hearing protection- none of the hobbyist/light industrial units should be that loud but they can be annoying.

Using JP-5 as thinner? :eek: What are ya, German or sumthin? (a reference to the use of anything {up to and including gasoline} to thin the brown and and green camo paint used on German armor during WWII.):wink:

8

Perhaps we have different models. I bought my compressor 20 years ago, and as long as it’s sitting on something soft it is very quiet. Orders of magnitude quieter than my nail gun compressor.
Part of its quietness is the fact that it uses a sort of membrane thing to pump the air instead of a reciprocating piston.

I have heard of folks using refrigerator compressors for this, and if I didn’t already have a compressor I would probably give that a whirl, since those are pretty quiet.

The JP-5 worked great and was easy to get (there’s a petcock valve in the engine room to sample the JP-5 tanks). I pondered just how risky it was to be atomizing the stuff through my airbrush, but then again I was in a steel room with no combustible materials anywhere nearby and I just went for it.

9

Didja feel a little ‘funny’ after sitting in that steel room huffing atomized JP-5?

They bust kids for that sort of thing, ya know.:stuck_out_tongue:

I know I can get a little loopy after blowing lacquer thinner through the AB to clean it out.
Strangelove- that’s another thought- VENTILATION! Not enough to create a breeze, but enough to clear the air of potentially noxious fumes. Some recommend wearing an approved respirator when using an AB because of the fine paint particles suspended in the air.