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- Jakko
A while ago, I built Verlinden’s resin XM706E2 armoured car, the US Air Force security variant of the Cadillac-Gage V100 Commando. These photos are from when I had just finished it, dated 18 May 2006:
After that I sprayed it with Testors olive drab (the airbrush-ready type in a bag that they used to sell) and pencilled in the camouflage patches per Verlinden’s instructions:
However, that’s just about where things stalled. I began spraying the camouflage on the left side with a pale sand colour, and just couldn’t get it to go right. The airbrush spattered and gave far too much overspray and the paint covered very poorly, so I gave up for the time being, intending to finish it “soon” … I gave it one more try a few years go, but again had the same issue, so it sat in a box with a built-but-unpainted Trumpeter M706 (the same vehicle but with a machine-gun turret) for the last several years.
Last week, though, I purchased a new airbrush:
An Iwata HP A+, the one without a paint cup protruding above the airbrush body, to give me a good view of what I’m doing.
That left me trying to think of something to test it out on. I know, I could have sprayed stuff on cardboard or something, but I just can’t work that way. I have very little patience with abstract practice stuff that serves no actual purpose but to learn how to do something — I need a practical application to learn best. Then I remembered this model and dug it out to take the photo above.
After that I spent some time researching US Air Force aircraft camouflage of the Vietnam War, because general theory is that these cars were camouflaged with aircraft paints and colours. I decided to keep the olive drab base and add the brown and dark green over it, using colours I already had rather than ones that may be closer to the real thing. I settled on Mig British SCC 2 brown, a colour intended for British tanks of the Second World War, and Mr. Hobby RLM 81 dark green, a German aircraft colour of the same era.
The Mig paint, despite being airbrush-ready, gave me a fair amount of trouble. It seems to clog up the airbrush at times, but then suddenly clear a bit again. It also gradually narrowed its spray pattern as the paint way clogged up, so that at times I had to pull the trigger back all the way to spray lines as fine as it would with the trigger only a little to the rear when I began. I also had to pull the needle back all the way more than once to try and clear the paint way (this is the purpose of the cut-out in the rear section of the airbrush body: so you can directly pull the needle to the rear, and further than the trigger allows).
It took me about three quarters of an hour yesterday to paint around half the brown patches, and then I decided I had had enough for the moment. At that point came the fun of cleaning the airbrush. I had bought the Iwata partly because it seems to be easy to clean: the instructions say to get the paint out, blow cleaner through the airbrush, remove the needle and clean it with a cloth, and you’re done.
That didn’t work for me as such. I tried water and isopropanol, but neither did anything to the semi-dry Mig paint. I eventually resorted to cellulose thinner, which did get it out. However, I still had to use an old paintbrush and a cloth to get the remains of the paint out of the cup.
Returning today, I found the needle was stuck in the airbrush. A bit of careful effort later, I got it pulled out, and there was brown paint on much of its forward half. I suppose paint seeped back into the needle path behind the paint cup when I was trying to clean the latter with the needle removed. Some more cellulose thinner on a cloth got the dried paint off the needle, and then I blew more of it through the airbrush just to make sure.
That done, I again put the Mig SSC 2 into the cup and finished spraying the brown patches. It seemed to work better now than yesterday, and I had the remaining half done quicker than before. At this point, I decided to again put cellulose thinner through the airbrush to clean out the brown, which worked well enough.
Next, I stirred the Mr. Hobby RLM 81 and put a few drops into the cup, followed by some drops of isopropanol to thin it. To mix the two, I put my finger on the nozzle, pulled the trigger back slightly and pressed down to blow bubbles in the paint cup. This seems to work pretty well, and given the small size of the cup it’s about the only way you can mix anything inside the airbrush, I think.
I found the Mr. Hobby paint to spray much better than the Mig, but the Mig to produce far less overspray. Compare them in this photo:
I suppose this is partly because of my inexperience with this airbrush. I tried adding more thinner and playing around with the air pressure, but I couldn’t really get the overspray to lessen much. More use, and trying more kinds of paint, will probably let me find ways to get this to improve.
All in all, I’m so far pleased enough with this airbrush. It’s certainly capable of much finer work than the Aztek 470 I’ve been using for the last 20+ years, but it handles differently enough that I need a fair amount more practice to discover how to best use it.
After that I sprayed it with Testors olive drab (the airbrush-ready type in a bag that they used to sell) and pencilled in the camouflage patches per Verlinden’s instructions:
However, that’s just about where things stalled. I began spraying the camouflage on the left side with a pale sand colour, and just couldn’t get it to go right. The airbrush spattered and gave far too much overspray and the paint covered very poorly, so I gave up for the time being, intending to finish it “soon” … I gave it one more try a few years go, but again had the same issue, so it sat in a box with a built-but-unpainted Trumpeter M706 (the same vehicle but with a machine-gun turret) for the last several years.
Last week, though, I purchased a new airbrush:
An Iwata HP A+, the one without a paint cup protruding above the airbrush body, to give me a good view of what I’m doing.
That left me trying to think of something to test it out on. I know, I could have sprayed stuff on cardboard or something, but I just can’t work that way. I have very little patience with abstract practice stuff that serves no actual purpose but to learn how to do something — I need a practical application to learn best. Then I remembered this model and dug it out to take the photo above.
After that I spent some time researching US Air Force aircraft camouflage of the Vietnam War, because general theory is that these cars were camouflaged with aircraft paints and colours. I decided to keep the olive drab base and add the brown and dark green over it, using colours I already had rather than ones that may be closer to the real thing. I settled on Mig British SCC 2 brown, a colour intended for British tanks of the Second World War, and Mr. Hobby RLM 81 dark green, a German aircraft colour of the same era.
The Mig paint, despite being airbrush-ready, gave me a fair amount of trouble. It seems to clog up the airbrush at times, but then suddenly clear a bit again. It also gradually narrowed its spray pattern as the paint way clogged up, so that at times I had to pull the trigger back all the way to spray lines as fine as it would with the trigger only a little to the rear when I began. I also had to pull the needle back all the way more than once to try and clear the paint way (this is the purpose of the cut-out in the rear section of the airbrush body: so you can directly pull the needle to the rear, and further than the trigger allows).
It took me about three quarters of an hour yesterday to paint around half the brown patches, and then I decided I had had enough for the moment. At that point came the fun of cleaning the airbrush. I had bought the Iwata partly because it seems to be easy to clean: the instructions say to get the paint out, blow cleaner through the airbrush, remove the needle and clean it with a cloth, and you’re done.
That didn’t work for me as such. I tried water and isopropanol, but neither did anything to the semi-dry Mig paint. I eventually resorted to cellulose thinner, which did get it out. However, I still had to use an old paintbrush and a cloth to get the remains of the paint out of the cup.
Returning today, I found the needle was stuck in the airbrush. A bit of careful effort later, I got it pulled out, and there was brown paint on much of its forward half. I suppose paint seeped back into the needle path behind the paint cup when I was trying to clean the latter with the needle removed. Some more cellulose thinner on a cloth got the dried paint off the needle, and then I blew more of it through the airbrush just to make sure.
That done, I again put the Mig SSC 2 into the cup and finished spraying the brown patches. It seemed to work better now than yesterday, and I had the remaining half done quicker than before. At this point, I decided to again put cellulose thinner through the airbrush to clean out the brown, which worked well enough.
Next, I stirred the Mr. Hobby RLM 81 and put a few drops into the cup, followed by some drops of isopropanol to thin it. To mix the two, I put my finger on the nozzle, pulled the trigger back slightly and pressed down to blow bubbles in the paint cup. This seems to work pretty well, and given the small size of the cup it’s about the only way you can mix anything inside the airbrush, I think.
I found the Mr. Hobby paint to spray much better than the Mig, but the Mig to produce far less overspray. Compare them in this photo:
I suppose this is partly because of my inexperience with this airbrush. I tried adding more thinner and playing around with the air pressure, but I couldn’t really get the overspray to lessen much. More use, and trying more kinds of paint, will probably let me find ways to get this to improve.
All in all, I’m so far pleased enough with this airbrush. It’s certainly capable of much finer work than the Aztek 470 I’ve been using for the last 20+ years, but it handles differently enough that I need a fair amount more practice to discover how to best use it.
