TOPIC:

I'm not against spending money on airbrushes per se, I just wanted to be sure I was going to get on with airbrushing before dropping some serious cash on it ... I've found the fake badger 150 external mix brushes don't atomise paint very well, the quality of the cheap Chinese brushes is falling all the time, and even the finest nozzled one isn't really up to 1:10 camouflage, let alone 1:35 armour (at least in my hands, at my level of practive/use anyway).

There's definitely room for upgrading there, to something like a Tamiya spraygun & a quality gravity fed brush - if not the 200/300 GBP budget for each. I could (given time) stretch to 100 GBP on one, but I'm not convinced that would give me something much better than spending 20 GBP.

The cheapo DA siphon brushes are actually pretty good, the red one is even quite well built. The green one, which looks identical apart from the colour on one bit, is 12-18 months newer & although the performance is still good, the standard of fit is barely adequate.

I'm not sure I get any real value out of have a double/dual action trigger, or perhaps I haven't had the practice ... but generally I tend to use them likem a single action, the only real control coming from setting the pressure on the compressor regulator.

I do have access to a "big" compressor (well, 2.5hp, 24L) but it's very noisy (claimed 89db) so although the little one runs almost all the time when spraying anything of any size, it's very quiet in comparison.

Hey there,
I totally understand about the spending, I resisted doing it for years, my first Badger 200 was second hand at a boot sale and my 100G, like I said was thought to be junk and I think it cost me about $25. Now I don't know what the exchange is like for you these days but a quick ebay search turned up this one www.ebay.ca/itm...SwdJ9aRmZv that I highly recommend and these Badgers www.ebay.ca/itm...SwYSBbbyvZ and www.ebay.ca/itm...SwAlJbdL6F.
I never was very happy with the external mix types either, not bad for the inside of a Lexan body shell but then you could do that with a squirt gun if you wanted too
I agree there are some good knock off ones out there and some not so good ones. As for the single vs dual action thing the main difference I find is the ability to control the paint flow, never mind the air, when you push down on the little button it's just on, there is no real control there. With the single action I got into the habit of always starting a pass away from the surface I was painting because every once in a while it will spit out a little drop when it starts , the double action types don't do that because you push down to start the air then pull back to start the paint, very nice if you want to add a bit of shading or add some more color to the middle of a piece if you remember the order of operations .
The trigger type I find is even more fool proof as it's all one motion, the air starts first then as you continue to pull back the paint flow starts and when you let the trigger go back it stops, no drips. A good double action will also have an adjustable rear stop so you can get consistent paint flows on bigger areas. Since switching I have done some camo paint jobs on a couple of planes and a tank without masking you just draw the lines in close with the airbrush and fill the areas in, looks great. It is also nice for exhaust heat staining and soot marks etc. I did a nice Peugeot rally car and dirtied and dusted it up with the airbrush and some earth tone paints. You can do some really neat tricks with them.
A for your compressor, I think its great, more than enough for air brushing, it's a lot of low pressure work and not a lot of CFM's either. For flat paints I am spraying at 12 to 15 PSI and a bit more for some gloss colors depending on the viscosity and if they are metallic, say up to about 25 PSI, really no need for more it just tends to blow stuff around the room.

Honestly these are my thoughts on the subject and what works for me, I am always impressed with your work I don't think you need to change what is working for you .
The best advice I can give about airbrushing is...... do it!, practice, practice, practice.... write your name on a piece of scrap... lots of times, get a feel for it, play with some settings, thinner paint is better, learn your favorite materials to use, but practice is the key.

A little milling bits delivery.

A tools set arrived today.

Ratchet spanners are awsome arnt they. I’ve never had the 90 degree ones though.



Also, I knew as soon as I got my lathe I’d get frustrated and was a mill, love all those milling bits. Wish I had a mill to buy some for. One day....

I finally found a good power supply relatively compact able to give 10amps.

A nice set of heller drills. Cheap ones were annoying me with their crappy uneven grinds.

I have a few more in the posty too

Hey Rob,
Nice bits, excellent to see metric ones too!! Despite Canada being a metric country for about 40 years I still can't go down to the local hardware and buy a set of metric bits Even metric hardware is still treated as special don't know why people don't get with it already, might have something to do with living next to a large non-metric country but honestly isn't counting to 10 a hole lot easier than trying to figure out a bunch of fractions??

I watch a few you tube channels "this old tony" and "Abom", I highly recommend them as they are amazing to watch. But yes the fractions they talk in are well over my head. It's all metric here now and always has been for me.

When looking around the Heller looks great for a reasonable price. I did look at "Dormer" brand but WOW, what a difference, they must be the Rolls Royce of drill bits with a single small drill bit costing maybe £30-50. I'd have it snapped in a week

One of my next things to investigate is a reliable good quality drill bit sharpener. I doubt I will acquire the skill to sharpen the small <5mm drill bits I often use.

It’s drill bit stock up time. Couldn’t resist this Dormer index holder. Ok it’s not a metric measurement system but has a few Dormer etc drill bits included.

Plus a couple of specific HSS cobolt bits for a particular lathe job coming up.