Airbrush Tips

This is the place to get answers about painting, weathering and other aspects of finishing a model.

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Beowulf
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Airbrush Tips

Post by Beowulf »

OK, folks, I'm looking for airbrushing tips. I bought a basic Testor kit for mixing basecoats and mixing single colors for large areas not sold in spray cans. I guess I'm afraid of screwing things up beyond repair. Any suggestions are welcomed as I am quite the noob with it.
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Kylwell
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Post by Kylwell »

Best tip I can give you is always, always, clean it after use. Even if you're just putting it down to grab a sandwich. Can't tell you how long it took me to learn to run some cleaning solution throught the brush no mater how short of time. Paint seems to dry faster inside an airbrush (must be a time/space vortex or something).
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Scott Hasty
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Post by Scott Hasty »

MMMM, tips? Buy a cheap air compressor and line drier.

And yep, cleaning is very important. Have a dedicated bottle for your necessary cleaner of choice. If you have several cleaners, use several different bottles and mark them clearly. Again, if you need to stop brushing for longer than a sneeze, I suggest you shoot a copious amount of cleaner through it. If you are using acrylics, soak your brush body, tips and anything that touched paint in Windex [with ammonia], or any knock off Windex-like product.

You really have to be anal about cleaning when you use airbrushes.

Scottie
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Lt. Z0mBe
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Post by Lt. Z0mBe »

Scott Hasty wrote:MMMM, tips? Buy a cheap air compressor and line drier.

And yep, cleaning is very important. Have a dedicated bottle for your necessary cleaner of choice. If you have several cleaners, use several different bottles and mark them clearly. Again, if you need to stop brushing for longer than a sneeze, I suggest you shoot a copious amount of cleaner through it. If you are using acrylics, soak your brush body, tips and anything that touched paint in Windex [with ammonia], or any knock off Windex-like product.

You really have to be anal about cleaning when you use airbrushes.

Scottie
The one caveat to this. If your airbrush has any brass parts, don't soak it in ammonia, as the ammonia will tarnish and possibly pit the brass parts.

I hope this helps.

Z0mBe

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