Author Topic: Calling all air brushers.....  (Read 9768 times)

Offline ctom

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Calling all air brushers.....
« on: 09/04/13 20:15 UTC »
I have a higher end Paasche air brush that has been used mainly with india inks and some alcohol based paint/inks. About a year ago it developed an attitude which, upon sending it to a specialist, it was determined that a slug of product got sucked into one of the tiny passages. Its been cleaned and put back in operating status. My question surrounds the water-based paints designed for air brushing and whether the paints can be used straight from the factory bottle....do they require thinning? I have the Do-It paint set, 12 starter colors. If these need thinning, what consistency am I looking for? Any help will be appreciated and I'll offer thanks in advance.
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Offline sim

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #1 on: 09/04/13 20:34 UTC »
from what I recall - you want the consistency of "milk" - most water based paints should not need any additional thinning - I used to use an airbrush quite a bit when I was building scale models, and the paints that were 'made for airbrushing' never required any additional thinning.

The biggest thing you want to watch for, of course, is if the paint is not mixed well, or if you don't quite get it cleaned and a bit dries in it and gets knocked off later.


Offline Jerry V

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #2 on: 09/04/13 20:49 UTC »
Those paints, like all of Do-It Paints, are made by Component Systems/CS Coatings.  That water based product they claim is airbrush ready strait from the bottle.  I would certainly be sure that it is mixed well first, but as it is a water based product if it would need any thinning a small amount of water should suffice.  The "milk" consistancy seems to be spot on but I would not hesitate to contact  CS Coatings with any further technical quesitons concerning any of their products.  (877) 845-3009,  www.csipaint.com
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Offline Frank

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #3 on: 09/04/13 22:23 UTC »
While these are all good answers and in my opinion is a great starting point the only thing variable is your air brush. The tip you have in it will tell you if further reduction is necessary. Small tip thinner material. Big tip thicker material. Not sure if your brand of airbrush use a small medium large way of telling how big it is. Most import air brushes have an actual number like .3,.5. This is in millimeters and does make things bait easier to say it is a .5 tip and not a medium tip because from passche and badger might not be the same. I have a tendency to get the biggest tip I can and turn down the needle to get what I want and for the most part don't get clogs. If I do I just open up the volume and flush it out and go back to what I was doing. Cleaning them and knowing where most problems lie is something to try and teach your self this way it never has to be sent out.

Offline tom1441

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #4 on: 09/05/13 06:23 UTC »
You will need to keep the tip clean. The water base paints that I use seem to dry at the tip quite often. I have been spraying with createx.


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Offline ctom

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #5 on: 09/05/13 06:29 UTC »
Thanks guys. I'll check out the tips, there are three or four with the gun, and swap out for a larger one since I am wanting to do larger areas. Alcohol and inks really are super thin and will create a cloud in a larger tip in this gun even when used with very moderate air pressure. I am using a compressor with the gun that is designed for air brushes. I never used the gun with the water-based paints before and after having this gun plug I guess I am a little gun shy. Gotta get some lake trout/salmon blades finished for later this month.
There are good ships
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ships that sail the sea
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and may they
always be ......An Irish Toast

Offline gone2long

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #6 on: 09/05/13 06:50 UTC »
I've tried several (brush ready) paints and none were consistent, what I mean is some shot right out of the bottle and some didn't within the same brand. Paint pigments can be natural or synthetic and are milled to different sizes and volumes to achieve the desired color, I did a little test just the other day with brand new unopened bottles of the same brand paint and was surprised with the results: I weighed a bottle of white and it came in at 92 grams so I weighed the second bottle of white and it was 91 grams but as I weighed the other colors they were all over the place all the way down to 64 grams this was clearly due to pigment load.

Frank is spot on with the tip size, here's an example I can shoot craft paint after thinning down with my .66 tip but would never be able to get consistency with my .25 tip, what's the difference well my .66 tip is comparable to a rattle can and my .25 is like a pencil. The tip size dictates how thin the paint you're using needs to be. I have found that Spectra-tex did the best so far out of the bottle with little reducing and can tell you that Createx standard paint needs to be reduced.

Also your air pressure comes into play depending on what type of brush you're using i.e. a gravity fed will require less air pressure than a siphon fed for the simple fact that more pressure is required to pull the paint through the bottle and up the tube to the tip, what does this mean well in my limited experience the lower the pressure you can get away with it seems to be I have more control over the application of paint. The bottom line is embrace the fact of reducing paint, learn it and you will have eliminated one piece in the puzzle.

And as stated the general rule here for reducing paint is the consistency of "skim milk" how in the world anyone can tell between skim milk and 2% milk is beyond me but a good rule of thumb is 1:1 ratio of reducer to paint. I know there are homebrew reducers that work great and are a hell of allot cheaper than brand specific reducers but I encourage you to start with a bottle of brand specific reducer until your confident with using your brush with the brand Paint of your choosing and go from there.

Offline ctom

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #7 on: 09/05/13 07:40 UTC »
That's really helpful stuff, G2L. Thank You.

I could always go back to spray cans and stencils for the stuff I do on the salmon/trout blades but I like the control and pin point control the air brushes provide. I'll put all this together tomorrow and see what the world says when all is done.
There are good ships
and wood ships
ships that sail the sea
but the best ships are friendships
and may they
always be ......An Irish Toast

Offline Frank

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #8 on: 09/05/13 10:09 UTC »
Just gotta ask. Gone2lonng where did you get those numbers? Are you using an air brush made in the US and got those sizes from the manufacturer? The .66 has got me just seems like the largest one from say badger. Never  knew the metric size of a US air brush. But if it is, it is good to know. My favorite gun(I say this because it is an air brush with a trigger) has a .8 tip. I had to build it with that tip because they did not offer it that way. Great for one shot painting but no room for error.

Offline gone2long

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #9 on: 09/05/13 11:44 UTC »
Hey Frank I bought an Iwata neo with a .35 while I was waiting for delivery of the Paasche Talon TG3 it's the set with three different needle/tip sizes:

Includes:
-6ft braided hose,
-wrench,
-nozzle wrench,
-hanger,
-Needles, Tips, and Head Caps in all three sizes! (.25mm, .38mm and .66mm)
-Plus! The new Fan Aircap (TAF-3.)

Not sure what to make of the fan cap, I put it on the .66 setup and it seemed very uneven with the 1 test I did so the jury is still out on that one but I can tell ya that the .66 will suck the paint out of the cup in the blink of an eye! And I would highly recommend to anyone just getting started to look at the neo, it's not made by but for Iwata and for the money $55) it's a great little brush, the Talon is one honking piece of metal but like it so far, very versatile.

Offline Frank

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #10 on: 09/05/13 23:35 UTC »
Hey Frank I bought an Iwata neo with a .35 while I was waiting for delivery of the Paasche Talon TG3 it's the set with three different needle/tip sizes:

Includes:
-6ft braided hose,
-wrench,
-nozzle wrench,
-hanger,
-Needles, Tips, and Head Caps in all three sizes! (.25mm, .38mm and .66mm)
-Plus! The new Fan Aircap (TAF-3.)

Not sure what to make of the fan cap, I put it on the .66 setup and it seemed very uneven with the 1 test I did so the jury is still out on that one but I can tell ya that the .66 will suck the paint out of the cup in the blink of an eye! And I would highly recommend to anyone just getting started to look at the neo, it's not made by but for Iwata and for the money $55) it's a great little brush, the Talon is one honking piece of metal but like it so far, very versatile.
I can tell you about the fan cap. Basically it converts the round spray fan to an oval. Right now if you spray a piece of paper it will be one stream. With the one that looks to be cut out it will be narrow and tall. I see on there site where they give the actual metric numbers. Looked at badgers and they still don't. Using the fan one you could better cover larger areas. And if you think a .66 eats up the paint my .8 is faster.

Offline ctom

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #11 on: 09/06/13 06:26 UTC »
This info will be used while I work with some blades that will become trolling spoons for Lake Superior soon. I ordered spoon blanks in gold-plate and silver plate. Somehow the order got doubled and I wasn't charged for it so I called the company and asked how to handle it. They said it would cost more to fiddle around with everything regardless of which direction we took so I should just keep them as their treat. I wasn't even aware of the doubling until two nights ago when I went to the garage to do some prep work and opened the package. That was quite a treat on their part. My original order was for 50 blades so now I have enough to peg in the tackle closet for several years to come.
There are good ships
and wood ships
ships that sail the sea
but the best ships are friendships
and may they
always be ......An Irish Toast

Offline Muskygary

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #12 on: 09/06/13 07:17 UTC »
If your airbrushing spoons; can I ask what your using for a top coat?

Offline ctom

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #13 on: 09/06/13 07:32 UTC »
Gary.....I have a clear coat in a spray can that will be compatible with the water-based colors and that will be applied when everything is dry.

I'll also note here that I only do one side [convex] of each blade and then I only do about 1/2 of that surface in color. The exception is Wonderbread where I apply a full white undercoat on the convex side and while its wet I sprinkle regular glow powder on it, then tap the excess powder off and hang to dry. When that coat is dry I dot the fluorescent blue, yellow and red dots on, then clear coat when they are dry.

I'm hoping to get transparent green, transparent blue, and transparent purple applied to the silver blades along with the white for Wonderbread on three or four of the blades. The Gold blades will get all orange colors and patterns. Other than the Wonderbread the silver patterns will see 1/2 of the face side coated in color running from hole to hole. Some of the gold will see the orange running hole to hole while others will see a 4 or 5 spot pattern with black dot centers.

If things go as planned, I'll post up some pics later.
There are good ships
and wood ships
ships that sail the sea
but the best ships are friendships
and may they
always be ......An Irish Toast

Offline Muskygary

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Re: Calling all air brushers.....
« Reply #14 on: 09/06/13 07:59 UTC »
Never thought about sprinkling glow powder on the blades. Thinking about little ice fishing blades. You might have something new here. I use the top coat UV liquid to coat my spinner blades I make up for walleye harnesses.