Airbrushing Vs Hand Painting

[Guest]

Hi,Can someone help a newbie????

I am half way through the 1/32 Lysander kit from Shuttleworth, and tried for the 1st time to use an airbrush(Humbrol starter kit)

Obviously as this was an all black a/c I used No8 Matt black and sprayed the Fuz, wings etc.I thinned with enamel thinners 50/50 and ended up using almost the entire tinlet.

The finish, also was not as good I believe as hand painting would have achieved.

Should I look at getting a more expensive airbrush with compressor(v.expensive)or just stick to brushing?

I dont know weather to blame the cheap airbrush I have, but also can find no info on setting up the airbrush nozzle height etc.

I used the lizzie as practice before making what I want to be a really nice DH Rapide(heller kit) that I have to give to my dad as he flew in these for air transport charter(C.I) between 1978-1951.

I also wish to replicate the reg and company logo's on this a/c so will be looking to print my own decal paper I guess.

Its gonna be tough, but my Father is quite unwell, so don't have years to master it, but also don't want to rush it and muck it up.

Any info greatly appreciated.

Matt

[Guest]

Hi Matt, I feel for you coz getting used to spraying can be very frustrating! You shouldn't be having to use almost a full tin of paint on a relatively small model so I'm wondering how many coats you put on? No more than 3 coats should be your limit (though I'll stand corrected if aircraft need more than tanks!) & if the finish doesn't look too good, then I suspect you've put on more than that? A spray finish should always look better than brushing. Maybe you can post a few pics of the offending model? Patrick

[stona]

Matt check out the many threads and some good tutorials about airbrushing on the site. If you can't find what you want come back with some slightly more specific questions and we'll all do what we can to help you out. This piece of advice may be a bit late now but when spraying black on a scale model (particularly as small as 1/72) it is a good idea not to actually spray black. I use a mix of red and black (about 30% red at 1/32 scale) but others use a very dark grey or even NATO black which is actually a very,very dark green.

Best of luck with it!

Steve

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice guy's.

The side to airbrushing I cant find on the net is on my airbrush you can adjust the height of the nozzle coming from the ink bottle, and also adjust the nozzle that supplies the air.

What do these adjustments do?

Matt

[stona]

Hi again. I'm not familiar with the brush you are using but I'm guessing it is a side feed system so the paint is siphoned up from a container (bottle) via a tube. You should position the tube as near the bottom of the bottle as possible. It makes no difference to the spray it just enables you to pick up all the paint. Can you clarify what you mean by the nozzle that supplies air. It is making me think "spraygun" rather than "airbrush" though I may be mistaken. Also I assume your air supply is from a canister, correct?

As for your paint if you are using Humbrol enamels 50/50 paint to thinner is about right though you may need to adjust this. You can't rush. Once you have applied a coat,even if you can see problems with it, you must let it dry before doing anything else. If you try to "fix" something sooner you will only make things worse! I used to leave enamels a minimum 12 hours between coats. If you need to sand a run or similar you may need to leave it longer. This would apply if you were brush painting anyway but I do know how frustrating it can be!

Cheers

Steve