Airbru***ips or techiques

[SpaceMouse]

My daughter painted a rusty bridge. Well, it is just a little too rusty, I just got a Badger 150 w/ Badger 185 Compressor and I thought I could spray silver on the bridge and bring back the color, but I want the rusty flavor to remain. Other than practice on a beer can, what suggestions can you give me on distance, pressure, thinning, etc. that will make my first foray into airbrushing successful?

Keep in mind that I haven't even figured out how to connect it to the compressor yet--but then I have't tried either.

I am using acrylic paints ---Tamiya Color--Silver

Thanks.

[jwar]

Hi Spacemouse.. you selected a very good air brush.
Before you use the bru***ake it apart and see what makes it tick. Its far easier to do it now then loose a small O ring when your cleaning the brush. I use a baking pan to keep those no see-um parts from rolling off onto the floor.

The 150 Badger air pressure is between 15 and 50 psi with normal pressure at 30 psi. Start at 30 and only after practicing the following , then vary the pressure as the effect will be quite different and far easier to learn the techniqes of various air pressure effects.

Before tackling any job look at the manual and follow the maintance, proceedures and techniques of use. I have the same air brush and by using the manual as a guide I was into some pretty trick painting after following the Bager tips in the book. Start by getting the dot patterns down and the free hand controll effects, then do some even tones and varying shades. Whats trick is the cube, clyinder sphere paterns using one color in a 3 d effect, all of which is in the manual. As you practice it all comes togather very quickley. all of which is extreamelly usfull for weathering.

If you have the Bager Pro do the above with all three tips.

I am not familure with the Tamiya paint. I use Bagers paint as it doesnt have to be thinned, covers great and I do mix various colors for shades I want.

[HAZMAT9]

I've painted for a few years now using acrylics and it's great stuff. I thin a small amount in the mix cup with a few drops of ammonia to thin and I'm off. A lot is involved in airbrushing, different mediums take paint differently and need to be thinned diffferently. I used to have a section on my carnival modeling webpage dedicated to airbrushing, long been gone. Remember to keep your brush clean, that's pretty important. Their's variety of cleaners out there, though I use plain and simple alcohol and water. Use around 14-20 psi and experiment with that on your compressor. If you're using a gravity feed cup, you only need to thin the paint w/ a drop or two of thinner (i.e. ammonia or even water), sometimes you don't even need to thin. With a bottom feed a few drops of thinner should do fine. Practice at various distances and make mistakes....just remember how you made them and make note of them. I use a Badger 150 Anthem, a Paasche VLST-PRO, they work great. Experiment with paint mixtures as well and adjust your flows for varying degrees of paint thickness and patterns. I always try to prime my projects as well to give more depth to my paint plus it sticks a whole lot better. Hope this helps.....Steve