New to airbrushing. Which brand of paints to use?

[AntonioFP45]

As I mentioned on another thread, MAKE SURE that the surface of your model is CLEAN! Can't be stressed enough.

After cleaning your surface thorougly try not to touch it with your hands. Dont cough or sneeze near it. Sound a little silly, but any type of silicone that gets on the surface can cause the paint to lose adhesion. This is critical if you're painting a locomotive with multiple colors and an area you paint has to be masked off with tape. Nothing more frustrating than pulling the tape off of a previously painted area.............and the paint comes off with the tape! Been there, Done that.

An old timer told me years ago.....Painting is 5% technique, 5% proper mixing, and 90 percent Preparation! Since I was hard-headed, it took me a while to find out that he was correct![B)][:0][8D]

[ksax73]

Badger Railroad paint is awsome1 Can be used right out of the jar. Some like to add thinner to reduce clogging, but very little thinner is needed for it.

[Anonymous]

I'm an old throwback I guess, as I still prefer the solvent-based paints to the water-based ones. I paint most everything with Scalecoat 2 for plastics, and have excellent results. The glossy coat is decal-ready, plus about the only time I need to do a primer coat is for Railbox yellow, or any of the red shades, as they don't seem to cover as well.

One nice thing about the acrylics like Polly Scale or Model Flex is that they do dry faster, as you can paint and decal the same evening if speed is of the essence. But if you ever let them dry in your airbrush, you're in for a not-so-fun cleaning experience.

If fumes are something that concerns you, be warned AccuPaint has a particularly nasty odor. The only time I can stand to use it is outdoors in the summer when I can haul the compressor upstairs to the back patio.

[AntonioFP45]

Great Advice, edknecth,

I switched over to Badger ModelFlex and Polly Scale. Very good paint products! If you've painted with solvents for a long time, switching to Acrylics does take a little bit of getting used to.

I like the easy airbrush cleanup and "no more smell" to put up with.

[edknecht]

One thing you need to be mindful of when airbrushing with acrylics is the need for a primer with light colors (red, yellow, etc). It's my experience that a white primer will give the closest match to the color of the paint in the bottle. Priming with gray will darken the color.

[trolleyboy]

Yup model flex or Tamiya with the model flex you can spray it straight from it's own bottle no mixing or matching required. The polly scale acrylics are good as well but you will require a lot more thinning but their paint quality is quite good I'll usually use it for buildings or for hand brushed touch ups. Rob

[whitman500]

Badger makes a line called ModelFlex acrylics that are pre-thinned for airbrushes. I always found thinning the paint for airbrush use to be a major pain in the neck so I would try those. More generally, I would recommend acrylics over enamels since the former require less thinning and are easier to cleanup. I've generally used Tamiya.

[Anonymous]

I am going to try my hand at airbrushing a couple of my models. Which brand of paints do you airbrushers out there use? Floquil, Accu-Paint, Polly Scale, or something else? What are the pros/cons of the different brands? Thanks, Kevin