Airbrushes carry more mysteries for model builders than any other tool,despite dozens of books that have been published on the subject of airbrushing there is just no substitute for hands on experience with these precision tools,unless you are prepared to work in a clean methodical fashion then the airbrush is not for you,these tools require constant attention in order to get the very best from them and do require a certain knack that is only acquired with practise,however if you are patient and prepared at first to tread slowly then the rewards for superfine finishes are great,the ability to apply superfine layers of colour in a very subtle fashion to reproduce intricate camouflage schemes are all possible with these tools.
If you are thinking of investing in one then gather together as much information as possible of the different models available today,you will need to pay about £100 for a decent one,forget the cheap spray guns that masquerade as airbrushes,these are fine for spraying large areas of colour but useless for any fine detail work,the airbrushes vary from manufacturer but most work on the principles of adjustable air or paint,a dual trigger can activate both air and paint in varying degress,difficult to explain here but you will soon grasp the idea the first time that you pull the trigger.
Alongside the airbrush you will need a constant supply of clean water free air,to this end there are the spray cannister cans that screw onto the airline of the gun,these are far from the best source of air as the cans freeze up quickly and also water quickly gets into the airline and ruins the finish,then there is the adaptor that screws onto a large tyre inner tube that sits outside your workshop ! not really satisfactory as the air supply can fluctuate,the best way is a small compressor that is fitted with a water/moisture trap,small diaphragm compressors are available for a few hundred pounds,they are certainly not cheap but will give years of service,mine is now 20 years old and has saved pounds in spray cannisters and sprayed literally hundreds of models in the process.So you can see the initial investment is fairly high but the end results are in my mind well worth the expenditure,time and effort involved with air brushing.
A word about safety,unless you have a proper paint extractor then forget airbrushing in a domestic environment,set aside a small cubicle in the corner of your garden,mine is a sort of lean too affair adjoining a shed,all of my work is undertaken in this way in the fresh air so that the volatile droplets of diffused spray exit to the atmosphere,never ever work near a naked flame or ignition source,what I usually do is preapare a few pieces of work ready for spraying and all suitably pre-masked,then I wait for suitable warm dry weather and batch spray,it only takes a few minutes to spray and do the essential clean up of the gun.
Collect those small sample jars that jam comes in and prepare a selection of the basic colours suitably thinned to the consistency of milk,before you attempt any spraying make sure that you have a plentiful supply of thinners,what I do is have a good quality one for the actual paint mix and ordinary white spirit for cleaning the gun,have a bristle hair paintbrush handy to clean the paint cup after use and finally place a tiny bit of cycle oil into the cup and give a quick blast,this ensures that the delicate paint nozzle will not seize up if the smallest amount of colour is left in the cup itself.Obviously this oil must be dispersed next time that you do any spraying with more thinners.
Beware of using cellusose thinners in airbrushes unless you have special nylon washers as opposed to the rubber ones which will quickly swell up,some people mix cellulose thinners with enamel to get the paint to dry but this is a specialised application that requires care and knowledge to perform.
Always have a plentiful supply of kitchen tissue to hand and a piece of lint free cloth as well,so to re-cap for the initial set up we need the following items ready to hand-
1/ Good quality airbrush.
2/ Compressor with airline & water trap in the circuit.
3/ Suitable place to spray.
4/ Colours pre-mixed to avoid delays in small marked jars.
5/ A supply of pipettes for dispensing the paint into the cup of the airbrush ( chemists or Proops at the shows)
6/ Plenty of proper paint thinners to match your paint.
7/ Bottle of white spirit.
8/ Tissue paper.
9/ Lint free cloth.
10/ Model pre-masked.
Next time I will deal with actually using the airbrush in order to get the very best from it.
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