Yes, your organic-solvent primer paint will work just fine with an acrylic or latex overcoat. When you spray with the can, be sure to do it with quick light passes. Let one pass dry before doing another one. Let it dry for at least 24 hours before applying the water-base paint. You can tell if an enamel or lacquer paint is dry by putting your nose against the thing you are painting. If you smell anything at all, it is not dry. This works especially well if you don't have a cold with sinuses blocked, or allergies!
MRRSparky,
Thanks for the follow up answer. I have another question now: I discovered yesterday that the rattle can of primer that I thought was acrylic paint was in fact a standard oil-based automotive primer. Will the acrylic paint work being sprayed on top of that type of primer or was I doomed from the beginning?
Thanks,
Don Z.
Research; it's not just for geeks.
I was using Delta Ceramacoat to paint a ceramic picture frame for my daughter. She'd dropped it and I'd repaired it with ACC glue. I poured some of the paint into an airbrush bottle and poured some distilled water in. I don't remember exactly but the mix was about 60% paint to 40% water. I started out with somewhat less thinner and didn't like the way it looked.
I used a Badger 200 single internal mix brush at 15-18 psi. It seemed to go on quite nicely. I did find that if I set the brush down at all, even to scratch an itch, I had to shut the needle off. Once, I had to take the needle out and the two nose cone pieces to clean them, but that was only becasue I had to go answer a phone call. This paint will dry very quickly, whether inside an airbrush or on a project.
At this dilution rate, I had to be careful to keep the brush moving or I'd get runs. If that happens, just temporarily remove the paint bottle and just blow raw air at the run to move it around. Doing so will make it disappear. I've had to do this with other acrylics also, but usually only when I am being cheap and using the last of a bottle that really should have been thown out.
I have a shelf full of PollyScale, ModelFlex and Model Masters Acryl paints that I've had for some years, and are still usable, properly thinned. I make a practice of transferring a quantity of whatever paint I am going to use to a measuring cup so I don't keep the paint in the bottle open to the air too long.
When I seal the bottle, I cut a small square of SaranWrap (clear plastic film) and put it between the bottle threads and its cap. It creates a nice seal, but you have to be sure to clean off the bottle seal surface and the threads. That way I never have to use a large set of pliers to get the bottle open. Hope this helps.
I work as a Airbrush artist specialized in freehand art, and after having read your different stories of airbrushing I can only agree to the fact that there is more than one way to skin this cat . I work almost exclusively with water based paints and more often than not I use my Iwata with a 0.18 mm nozzle, it causes no problems IF the paint is correctly diluted. A problem with most hobby-paints is the varying quality, therefore I have started to use a ready diluted paint called Vallejo Model-Air. A tip is to avoid the side/bottom feed Airbrushes, the benefits of a top feed gun is that you can work with reduced pressure and slightly thicker paints with good results (thicker paint- less runs). Also use the lowest air pressure that still makes a good mist to reduce blowback and excessive area-pollution.
A tribute to you Yankees from Sweden.
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Krylon makes an exclusive " plastic adhesion " paint in a can .... Fusion . I use it for cars and engines ... metal or plastic as a base coat . Even some primers can be scratched off easily . The black satin looks perfect for engines and cars that should end up black and takes that shiney look away without looking like dull primer or using shiney black which makes them look cheap . No sanding .... rubbing ... or priming needed after it's dry ! The weathering powders stick to it great . And if you just want to practice sizes of your airbrush spray ... grab a big sheet of poster board at your local dollar store for 3/ $1.00 and experiment . I wipe my stuff down with alcohol before painting . The airbrush looks better in my opinion for road grime and splash ... if you have a good one rust trails too .
Don Z MRRSparkyI spray exclusively acrylics, including cheapy Delta Ceramacoat paints. MRRSparky, Could you elaborate on prepping the cheapy Ceramcoat paint for use in your airbrush? Don Z.
MRRSparkyI spray exclusively acrylics, including cheapy Delta Ceramacoat paints.
Could you elaborate on prepping the cheapy Ceramcoat paint for use in your airbrush?
Don-I will say the Delta Ceramacoat is a much better craft paint than the Anita's or Apple Barrel. Seems to have a much finer pigment and covers better. Folk Art brand isn't bad either.
To MRR Sparky...YUP!!!!!!!!!!!! ME too!
Man, there sure are a number of opinions expressed here. I'll offer mine FWIW: I used a Badger 200 internal mix single action brush for years painting locomotives and cars. I set pressure for 15-18 psi for thinned acrylics - 70% paint to 30% thinner. I use PolyScale's thinner which is probably blue windshield washer fluid but I've used tap water too. Modelflex I use unthinned right out of the jar. Just to confuse things further, I use 4-8 psi when I am weathering. Just set the paint flow to when you can just see it. I practice/test on cheap plastic car shelss, usually 50 cents at train shows.
I recently bought a Paasche H and am using the #3 tip set for PolyScale, Modelflex, Model Master acrylics as well as their organic solvent paints. BTW, I REALLY like how these paints cover and finish. However, they are $5 for a 1 oz. bottle. Yikes! Anyways, the #3 tip works well if PolySclae is thinned.
As to thinning, I use small portion cups and just pour paint in the cup and then add thinner to what looks about right. The only time I get accurate is when I am trying to match an off-shade already-existing painted shell. I did one the other day that called for 10.5 parts dark green, I part yellow, and 1.5 parts white. Lots of sample testing that led up to this final formula. For this kind of work, I bought one hypodermic needle and a bunch of syrings without needles. Using this, you can get very accurate as to a paint mix. Once a syringe gets so you can't see through it, remove the needle and screw it onto another syringe.
Somethig I have learned is that model paints go bad in the bottle; sometimes they are already bad when you bring them home from the hobby shop. The experience I've had is that the paint stops flowing at even the highest with bad paint. Thinning doesn't help. With the exception of organic solvent Model Master, I spray exclusively acrylics, including cheapy Delta Ceramacoat paints. These require a little higher pressure, and you can temporarily remove the paint bottle/cup to use the raw air to "blow away" any runs.
BTW, I have never noticed the difference in quality of paint job whether I spray at 15 psi or 30 psi. At the lower pressure, your compressor air tank lasts longer before turning the compressor back on.
Don Z Lest everyone think I'm a total idiot, I did paint about 400 linear feet of rail with my airbrush last year with good results. However, I did use Pollyscale paint that was thinned with distilled water and had none of the troubles I've had in trying to paint using craft acrylics. Don Z.
Lest everyone think I'm a total idiot, I did paint about 400 linear feet of rail with my airbrush last year with good results. However, I did use Pollyscale paint that was thinned with distilled water and had none of the troubles I've had in trying to paint using craft acrylics.
Don, I only use Pollyscale when painting with water based paints. No way would I try using cheap craft acrylics. I stopped using Badger paint a few years ago, as it did the same thing to me you are experiencing now. Pollyscale seems to be much more forgiving when diluting with water or alcohol. I use water to dilute. Maybe 40 or 50%. Its not an exact science for me.
Well if it hasn't been said already I'll say it now. Don't practice on your models. Use a beer can, soda can, or coffee can to practice. Be patient and try different things. If your brush has an open mixing cup use that and also use an eye dropper to mix the thinner/paint.
Google airbrush training etc and watch video's as well. good free learning available.
Springfield PA
Dave,
Thanks for the reassurance that things might actually get better over the long run! I'll try to get the hang of this airbrush one of these days....
All I can say is "don't give up." My early airbrush attempts were, well this is a family web site, so I won't go into that. After what seemed like an eternity of reading, watching and experimentating, I can fully say "they'll need to pry my airbrush out of my cold dead hands." Once you get the hang of it, you'll love it!
Don Z modelmaker51 To be perfectly honest, if I were painting those tanks, I would just use some Krylon rattle can paint to paint them. Almond looks like a good color. Jay, Regarding the tanks....I'm substituting the oil storage tank for a municipal water storage tank. That's where the blue color is derived from. I didn't think to look at the rattle cans for the color I want.
modelmaker51 To be perfectly honest, if I were painting those tanks, I would just use some Krylon rattle can paint to paint them. Almond looks like a good color.
To be perfectly honest, if I were painting those tanks, I would just use some Krylon rattle can paint to paint them. Almond looks like a good color.
Jay,
Regarding the tanks....I'm substituting the oil storage tank for a municipal water storage tank. That's where the blue color is derived from. I didn't think to look at the rattle cans for the color I want.
Don't forget about autoparts stores and their auto touch up spray cans. Lots of colors to choose from there.
ef3 yellowjacket The second is that, as a practise, one should always prime plastic. Your buddy said not to? Hey, this isn't going on your buddy's layout, now is it? Listen to me here; I know from whence I cometh!
The second is that, as a practise, one should always prime plastic. Your buddy said not to? Hey, this isn't going on your buddy's layout, now is it? Listen to me here; I know from whence I cometh!
Yellowjacket,
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I wasn't priming before painting. The project was primered and everyone I talked to before starting the project told me to primer first.
I just started messing with my airbrush again after a multi year hiatus. Heck. Multi decade...
A couple of tips I got that seem to be working okay, is I'm keeping a big jug of windshield washer fluid handy to provide a good cleaning agent. I've also tried using it in very small quanitities as a thinner, too. It works great for thinning those cheap craft acrylics.
The closest hobby shop to me specializes more in R/C than trains, so the paint selection leans toward the glossy and colorful, although they have a rack of Testors Master Acryl (or something like that) for military models. Fortunately, my current project involves red, white and black (guess what road I'm doing!) so I found what I needed pretty quickly.
For the black roof of the F unit, I used the craft acrylic, thinned with a mixture of acrylic matte medium and windshield washer fluid. It went on unbelievably smoothly! I suppose I was shooting around 35 psi, using a Badger double action.
The white was the most difficult. Even after a bit of thinning, it seemed to go on heavy. This was probably due to being a "Semi Gloss" white... Next time, a little more thinner, and a little less pressure, I think.
The red went on like butter. I took the stock bottle, and again added maybe 4 drops of the washer fluid.
I'll see if I can get some pictures up shortly.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Your in-depth reply is greatly appreciated and I will be printing it out and taking it to my workbench with me for reference while practicing both mixing and spraying.
Thanks again,
There are certain dos and don'ts that come into play with airbrushing; the very first is the type of tip, the pressure, the mix. Ensure that all are correct.
Priming sets up both a uniformity as well as "tooth" to the surface; and if you are priming, use an enamel-based primer-or a laquer-based one. You don't have to go bananas either; simply coat the model with a light to medium lay of primer, let it dry thoroughly, and then make sure ther eare no dog hairs, cat hairs, lumps bumps or clumps are clinging sneakily to places you will not like to see them being on a finish coat!
Mix your finish paint thoroughly, then strain it (old pantyhose works really good for this. my girlfriend is only too happy to donate hers) into your container. Next, ensure your pressure medium is clean, with no moisture, oil, etc, in it; also check your pressure. if it is too low, you will likely splatter the paint onto the surface. This really is not a good thing as it will most likely ruin your day.
Lastly, I will say that you should at least give a manual a cursory read, then PRACTISE, PRACTISE PRACTISE!!!!!
Yellowjacket EF-3
To get back to airbrushing.
Some of my basics: I use the paint cup rather than the bottles to paint loco and car size objects. The paint cup is easier to clean and is perfect if you're changing colors a lot, like when weathering. And it's only one thing to clean, instead of bottle, cap & siphon tube.
I use small 1/2oz and 1oz plastic cups to mix, thin and strain my paints. A free source is Mc Donalds little condiment cups, I usually grab a stack when I visit. The 1oz cups are sold at many hoppy shops, look in the glue section, they're also used to measure & mix epoxy. These are made of polyethelene so they also ok with solvents. Another source is Softco or restaurant/catering supplies stores, you can get 500 1oz cups for less than 3 or 4 bucks, you can find lids there too.
As I mentioned earlier and Lothar reiterated, I do use a little alcohol in my thinner. Using a PolyScale or ModelMaster acrylic thinner bottles, filled 70-80% water and the rest with alcohol. This formula aids in paint flow and cutting surface tension (static electricity sort of). The paint goes on easier and smoother and does not cause any issues with gumming or stringing or drying in the airbrush. We used to use a product from Kodak called PhotoFlow for the same purpose, but it's become harder to find with the advent of digital cameras.
As I also said earlier, the ratios of thinner to paint are just to get you in the ball park, what you're really after is a paint consistency of 2% milk. That's why I like the used up Paint thinner bottles, as you can more easily control how much thinner you add. Add some thinner, stir it in, then slosh it around and if it looks like 2%milk you're there, (in the beginning you might want to keep a little glass of milk handy to compare to), If not add a little more water and repeat, if too much add back a little more paint, etc. With some repition, you'll get nack of it. If you're using a paint jar/bottle, fill it about a third with paint. and to get a better feel for it, take a sharpie and divide the paint into thirds and mark another egual section above the paint, fill up to that mark with thinner and stir thoroughly and compare to the 2%milk, (you can use this method for any amount of paint until you can guage it by eye).Add small amounts of thinner or paint until the consistency is about the same as the milk.
With your air brush set at about 25 to 30 psi, hold the airbrush about 8 inches from the object and start spraying, moving back and forth, each pass for a six inch long object should take onethousandoneonethousandtwo. If the paint is puddling or running, turn down the paint flow on the airbrush (single action brush: turn the cone inward - towards you). If the paint is going on dry and flat, turn the paint flow up (turn the cone outward - away from you). Keep your hand/airbrush parallel to the object. the paint should look semi-shiny when it lands on the object, not too wet/not too dry. I know that's not very precise, but you'll get a feel for it the more you practice. It does take soem time to develope your own technique and you have to put the time in to get there, (10-20 hours to get decent)
Practice different distances from theobject and different paint flow and air pressure settings, but the above is a good place to start. I hope some of this is of use. Jay.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
Phil,
Thanks for the information. I think the main reason I haven't ventured into using solvent based paints is because of the clean up process. Cleaning water based materials is just so much easier (to this uninitiated user) at this point. I'm amazed you can spray at such low pressure.....I've used MEK in the past while building aquariums, so I'm familiar with the material. I guess I now have a new method to test and practice with....
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
Lacquer thinner!
Loathar,
I think I'm going to stay away from using alcohol with acrylic paint. My goal for this week is to fire up the compressor, mix up a batch of paint and practice spraying on a sheet of white foamcore board until I get the hang of it. If I waste 4 or 5 bottles of paint on the journey, so be it. While researching this topic, I read of some people using windshield washer fluid to dilute acylic paints.....what don't they use??
Alcohol-What I do is mix up a bottle of thinner. 70% water/30% alcohol and use this to thin my paint. Seems to help break the surface tension like with scenic cement. If you add the alcohol straight to the paint it causes it to separate and chunk up. Some people use Windex in some dilution to thin their acrylics, but I never saw the sense in adding a soap-like substance to my paint. The alcohol seems to help with drying and runs too.
Don ZWell, here's more confusion...several people here have told me to not use alcohol as a thinner. I just watched the newest episode of Cody's Office where he shows how to airbrush. Guess what he used to thin his Pollyscale paint.....70% alcohol! He is gearing this airbrush seminar towards us newbies.....do you experienced airbrush painters stand by your advice to avoid the alcohol for thinning acrylic paints? Don Z.
Well, here's more confusion...several people here have told me to not use alcohol as a thinner. I just watched the newest episode of Cody's Office where he shows how to airbrush. Guess what he used to thin his Pollyscale paint.....70% alcohol! He is gearing this airbrush seminar towards us newbies.....do you experienced airbrush painters stand by your advice to avoid the alcohol for thinning acrylic paints?
100% stay away from the alcohol, as I mentioned I've been using an airbrush for over 39 years and have never seen the need to use anything other then water when applying acrylics. After all that how you thinned the paint in the first place? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but trying to adjust the mixture ratio of your paint once you've started spraying is like trying to put the Genie back in the bottle. I have always simply followed the direction from the manufacture regardless of what type of paint I am spraying. I use some pearls and candy colrs that are well over $100 a quart so believe me the chemist who came up with the formula knows a heck of a lot more about that paint then I do, same with acrylic model paints.
All it takes is lots of practice, your not going to get good in one or two shootings. If you do it's just dumb luck.One way of controlling an airbrush you might want to try is simply by moving it closer or farther away from the subject. Just get yourself a note book in the dollar store and make a journal of mixing ratios, air pressure settings etc. It will prove to be invaluable in the future. I happen to like acrylics for several reasons. If you screw up just wipe it off fast with hot water and your good to go. I also like how it has a semi or almost flat finish. You don't want a glossy or high gloss finish on anything in model railroading. Even when custom painting a bike tank or a set of ghost flames on a hot rod you get all your get all your gloss form the top coat or clear coat when using an airbrush. All your looking for is nice even consistent coats, no runs no drips no errors after all your more then likely going to weather it and hit it with dull coat by the time your finished with it.
Good luck and practice practice practice
modelmaker51 All these mixing ratios are a good place to start from, but I've never opened 2 bottles of Polyscale in a row and found exactly the same paint thickness in each bottle. What's more important is the final result of thinning and for any water-based acrylics and a #3 (medium) airbrush tip you want to end up with a paint consistency of 2% milk. You should be able to shoot that with an air pressure of 25 to 35 psi, I'm usually right around 30 psi. Anything higher and you risk getting a "sandpaper finish" as the paint tends to dry before hitting the subject. The lower your air pressure the less overspray there is and the less paint you use/waste.
All these mixing ratios are a good place to start from, but I've never opened 2 bottles of Polyscale in a row and found exactly the same paint thickness in each bottle. What's more important is the final result of thinning and for any water-based acrylics and a #3 (medium) airbrush tip you want to end up with a paint consistency of 2% milk. You should be able to shoot that with an air pressure of 25 to 35 psi, I'm usually right around 30 psi. Anything higher and you risk getting a "sandpaper finish" as the paint tends to dry before hitting the subject. The lower your air pressure the less overspray there is and the less paint you use/waste.
Thanks for the information...regarding use/waste of paint: How do you determine how much paint to mix in order to paint the project at hand? For example, this is the item I'm trying to paint:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3168
One tank, 6" diameter and 6.25" tall. It seems like there will be a lot of paint being wasted until I get the hang of using the airbrush.....will it take 1/2 ounce of paint and who knows how much water to get the paint to the correct consistency? These ratios are going to make me lose my mind....
With acrylic paint ratios, the lower number is the thinner. With PS thinner is usually between 25 - 35%. Modelflex often doesn't require any thinner and if it does, no more than 10%. With oils, thinner is usually more like 50/50 to paint.
You must screen or strain your paint once it is thinned, I use discarded nylon stockings. No matter how careful you are, every time you open a bottle some of the dried paint in the cap will fall down into the paint. Strain, Strain, Strain.
Isopropl alcohol shouldn't be used for thinning by noobes, it has it's uses in special situations, as you get comfortable with your airbrush you can experiment with using alcohol.. You can however, add a drop or two as a wetting agent to help cut surface tention and help the paint from beading up and help get it to flow into corners and crevices, (you can also use a small drop of dish detergent instead for this purpose).
Paasche has a good beginners guide and paracticing tips in their owner's manuals. It takes a good 10 to 20 hours of practice to get competent with an airbrush, so, Practice, Practice, Practice.
Jay, custom painting (for a living) since 1989.