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air brush

oneshot86

Full Member
Full Member
Minuteman
Jul 13, 2001
9,455
10,599
citrus park ,fl
my daughter is an artist and wants an airbrush...

i dont know anything about it but if its worth doing, its worth some overkill...

i hate junk, like quality but hate paying for it if i dont need to. i would like the best airbrush i can get, hopefully to last almost forever.

along with the airbrush, ill need the compressor. i want quiet and with enough cfm for larger guns...

one of you guys must know what to buy and could help me out
 
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my daughter is an artist and wants an airbrush...

i dont know anything about it but if its worth doing, its worth some overkill...

i hate junk, like quality but hate paying for it if i dont need to. i would like the best airbrush i can get, hopefully to last almost forever.

along with the airbrush, ill need the compressor. i want quiet and with enough cfm for larger guns...

one of you guys must know what to buy and could help me out

Check out TCP Global for Airbrushes.....

http://www.tcpglobal.com/Airbrushin...lies&utm_term=air+brush+supply&utm_creative=p

DON'T give in to the temptation to try and shoot CeraKote with an airbrush. It won't work, airbrush nozzles are too small and the Cerakote wil go on dry. Buy the Iwata gun from Cerakote;

https://www.cerakoteguncoatings.com/finishes/SE-138/iwata-spray-gun-kit-lph-80/

Stunningly good piece of kit. $219.00 when you buy some paint. I paid full boat retail and am still happy with it. You need an air drier and a good regulator too.
 
Dudes, if y'all saw his daughter's artwork you'd fucking shit. As a teenager she's producing stuff across multiple media that is better than most of the shit hanging on walls or coming out of Pixar. Everything from acrylics, charcoals, pencil, to digital. She's a fucking superstar and will OWN airbrushing if she tackles it.

I asked her about doing a commission piece for me for my ole lady, and hope we can make it happen.

I'm telling you, you would be stunned into disbelief if you saw this girl's work.
 
Very limited knowledge based on painting equipment, trucks, tractors and guns. You need an additional regulator, dedicated air hose and good filters on tha line.
 
Dudes, if y'all saw his daughter's artwork you'd fucking shit. As a teenager she's producing stuff across multiple media that is better than most of the shit hanging on walls or coming out of Pixar. Everything from acrylics, charcoals, pencil, to digital. She's a fucking superstar and will OWN airbrushing if she tackles it.

I asked her about doing a commission piece for me for my ole lady, and hope we can make it happen.

I'm telling you, you would be stunned into disbelief if you saw this girl's work.


He ain't lying. AMAZING Talent. She can do whatever she wants. I'm certain of that. (y)
 
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Dudes, if y'all saw his daughter's artwork you'd fucking shit. As a teenager she's producing stuff across multiple media that is better than most of the shit hanging on walls or coming out of Pixar. Everything from acrylics, charcoals, pencil, to digital. She's a fucking superstar and will OWN airbrushing if she tackles it.

I asked her about doing a commission piece for me for my ole lady, and hope we can make it happen.

I'm telling you, you would be stunned into disbelief if you saw this girl's work.


kinda made me choke up there, homeboy. thankyou... i had forgotten you saw some of her work. shes been incredible with the arts since kindergarden, plays violin, flute, guitar. but her art is mind blowing.

she is very good, remarkable, really. we are trying to get her into ringling school of arts

i really just want the best i can afford for her, i dont want to waste money but i dont want to spare it in this case either

she will do that piece for you stud, give her the 411 and let her go
 
I've got one......US military issue......never used, 40 years since I acquired it.......send me a PM.......it is yours.......maybe pay shipping.....you will need an air compressor, I think I have one of those as well, and a regulator........don't have one of those......
 
I've got one......US military issue......never used, 40 years since I acquired it.......send me a PM.......it is yours.......maybe pay shipping.....you will need an air compressor, I think I have one of those as well, and a regulator........don't have one of those......
im curious, why did the military issue airbrushes?
 
Here is what I've got.......compressor came from my brother......I'll plug it in to make sure it works......I've had it for at least 10 years.......heavy, maybe 15 lbs......

IMG_0998.JPG
 
DON'T give in to the temptation to try and shoot CeraKote with an airbrush. It won't work, airbrush nozzles are too small and the Cerakote wil go on dry. Buy the Iwata gun from Cerakote;
I agree that the nozzle of an airbrush is not ideal for cerakote nor duracoat, but it works fine. You just don't want to use it on big projects. But for small parts, it can absolutely be done. I know this because I do it. Almost 10 years ago, I painted a couple full stocks with duracoat, with 0.5 and 0.6 nozzles. Like I said, it wasn't ideal nor easy, but it works. Ideally, you want a nozzle bigger than 1.0, and Iwata makes a few of those
 
Oneshot, if your daughter is the shit like the guys above are saying, I would get her a nice Iwata brush with a small compressor from the tcp global site. I would get a gravity feed. It has a learning curve, and I have only used the brushes to stencil and coat stuff, but if she is passionate about it, she will create the most amazing art you can imagine because the work is seamless
 
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I had an Iwata Eclipse and currently have a Badger Renegade. Both are great airbrushes. I got rid of the Iwata and replaced it with the Badger because I can literally spray a hairline with the Badger. There was nothing wrong with my Iwata, just had too large of a tip. When I made the change, I just wanted to try something new at the time.

I went a totally different way when I went with my air supply. I went CO2.
Compressors can be bad about accumulating water in the line, which screws up your ability to paint well. I know people that have had two water traps and still get some moisture in their lines. Granted, I live in south Alabama and the air is ridiculously humid, which likely plays a part in all that. Compressors can also give a bit of “pulse” in the air flow. This can be minimized by hooking up a small tank in between the compressor and the brush. The “pulse” is only really noticeable in the very fine painting.

Anyways, I decided to go with a 20lb CO2 cylinder. The cylinder lasts a very long time. Best of all, it is 100% silent.....no noise, no vibration and no “pulse”......just clean, dry air. It was a personal choice to go CO2. I can’t say it was cheaper....perhaps in the short term, especially if you rent the cylinder (which I recommend). I bought a cylinder and if I had to do it all over again, I would rent it so I could swap it out on refills.
 
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CO2 is cool because it's a liquid when compressed so a small cylinder can store a lot of CO2 at a low pressure. Also it's used in the beverage industry so regulators are easy to get and cheap. Recently it is being used in the marijuana industry (plants feed on CO2) so it's becoming more available in no questions asked type of places...

Any way, if it's humid over there and she's not doing big murals, CO2 would be nice.

But try and get her to learn pin-striping too.
 
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Get a Iwata that is sized for the job, fine lines, volume coverage, fan pattern. When I was painting I had three different ones. Inks, fine needle. Pastels I ground and mixed with alcohol have a larger solids size, so bigger needle. Trying to use a one size fits all sucks. It’s like wrenches. Yes you can use a crescent wrench to tighten a 1/4” bolt, but it doesn’t do it very well.
Use a compressor with a tank. Put a sintered mesh filter trap on the the line at the compressor. Then a pancake fine filter at the airbrush or brush regulator. You will get line impurities, period. It just depends on the air source to what impurities you have to deal with. This is one of my current ones. http://www.airbrush-iwata.com/dettaglio.asp?Area=1&cat=36&prod=101 It’s all about the needle size. Also you want a gravity feed cup. The cups can be changed to suit the volume size.

Don’t use a compressor without a tank. The tankless compressors pulse. Also as the air travels down the line and cools. That’s how the moisture gets past the water trap. It’s remains as vapor till it cools. The all compressors also emit oil particles from the piston lubrication. The tank helps some of these particles drop out of suspension.

Co2 cans constantly change pressure as you use it. The air also gets cold very quickly and change the viscosity of the fluid your passing through the airbrush. It also get really expensive to use on a regular basis.

I also like the Iwata quick couplers. It makes attaching and switch easy. Just like regular air lines, only sized appropriately for airbrush’s. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001...disconnect&dpPl=1&dpID=316Ds0+VGbL&ref=plSrch

Don’t use a braided or coil line to attach to the airbrush. They cause a constant pulling tension on your hand. This is very light, easy to bend, and has plenty of air volume for small airbrush work. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000...brush+hose&dpPl=1&dpID=41cfAuksNjL&ref=plSrch

Here’s the adaptor you will need for the quick couplers. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002...brush+hose&dpPl=1&dpID=31ZFCR2y+KL&ref=plSrch
 
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Here’s just a idea of some line widths you can make with a airbrush. Literally fine as a pen. Or a bigger brush and paint a house lol. Pen in the photo is so you can reference the ball point tip size to the airbrush lines.
4782C38B-7A70-49B0-885D-FDD63B0EE368.jpeg
 
For guns, get the Iwata LPH-80 from Cerakote. It’s more of a mini HVLP spray gun and is very flexible in that you can get larger/smaller needle/cup configurations. If memory serves me correctly, it goes from 0.6mm to 1.2mm in 0.2mm increments. The gun from Cerakote comes with a .8 mm needle. I never got that deep into Cerakoting, just did a few of my own and some friends.

Cerakote will plug up a airbrush and the volume output is way to low. Learned that the hard way, cause well, I’m hard headed. Lol
 
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my god, i knew to bring this here, thank you very much. its late here right now and work tommarrow but wow again.

i will post her art for you, i cant waite to show her off

i would not ever agree to a go fund me anything, never, just please share your knowledge so i can get her the best
 
Maintenance and cleaning is pretty easy. These or something similar little pipe cleaner brushes work great. Just make sure there acetone resistant so your good with solvents they come in contact with. Acetone is your friend..... lots of acetone..... ahh vapors. Just kidding solvent depends on what fluid your running through it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B010...pe+cleaner&dpPl=1&dpID=41pm-lV4ydL&ref=plSrch

Treat the needle and cup with kid gloves. That is the heart of how your brush paints. Bend or damage the needle/cup tip and it will show in the paint. Trick I learned is when reinserting the needle. Pull back on the trigger and hold. Then insert the needle till it stops against the trigger. Now when you release the trigger, the trigger spring will bring the needle up to the cup seat and prevent over insertion. If you push the needle in with your fingers to hard you will splay the cup opening.
 
I'd asked her if she was selling any of her work and she was (wisely) keeping all of her stuff for her portfolio as she'll be applying to art schools soon, which is how we came to discuss a commission piece.

I hope @oneshot86 can get a couple of her pieces posted up. The pure talent is mind blowing, but if you ever got to talk to her you'd just shake your head that she's only 16(?) . She's one of those people that you just instantly pray is able to navigate life's obstacles and enjoy the success that her talent deserves. She could be doing "Lord of the Rings" -level work right now with the right contacts.
 
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Okay, I have some experience with these. In some cases, you'll want more than one, especially if she really gets into it. It can be hard, have you seen some of the work? Wow.

Anyway, start with these two:

External mix. (a Badger may do okay here for a while, Paasche has one too). They're cheaper and do larger volumes and can cover larger areas.

Internal mix, dual action. Paasche. Here you want something that's dual action and uses multiple size needles (for changing spray, maintenance and easier to change when it wears out). They'll have the threaded screw and lock nuts on the end of the handle usually. You want something that takes color cups and you'll want several color cups. Maybe a jar filled with water (or solvent but most airbrush artists use water based paints for safety) to clean between cups. This allows fast changes between colors, what an artist needs.

Later on you may want to also get another Paasche, it has a small color cup built into the airbrush. It does very fine detail. The other one above though should do much of what it can do, so it'll be up to your daughter if she finds a need for this later.

The air compressors, yeah, the small ones made for it work well but a larger one from Home Depot would be better. It shouldn't run TOO much because the airbrush doesn't bleed much air from those tanks so it won't be running all the time. The DeWalt model that looks like a donut? Probably a good one to consider --if serious. You can also run tools from it, so not a total loss. Make SURE to use a water trap! No matter what compressor you go with, USE the water trap! It's mandatory with airbrushes. You don't want oil or water in the lines.

Maintenance of airbrushes is the big turn off. They can be tedious to clean and the needles can be damaged if paint is left to dry on them (hard to get off without harming the needle). So she'll have to be dedicated to cleaning in between, not letting them sit for long and then total cleaning at the end of the session. Sometimes they need cleaning during a session, depending.

Me? I stick with oils and brushes when I paint now! Even quality oils and quality brushes and good canvas and frames are cheaper than airbrush setups. But I still like airbrush art, like I said, some of it is simply amazing. I could never get into it --I used 'em to paint models as a kid, was really into that, and I used 'em to Duracoat a rifle and shotgun before Cerakote became available. Sold the airbrush, Cerakoted the rifle and the Duracoat black has actually held up on the shotgun (oh, and a Glock!) surprisingly well, forgot they were Duracoated until right now.

So it has it's uses. If you get a sandblast cabinet and a bigger compressor, you can run all sorts of stuff and just run a line with a water trap into her studio space and call it good. You'd be able to use her external feed rig to Cerakote your own rifles then! Save money, get more out of it and make it pay for itself that way!

Good luck, I wish I knew more but I do know that much. Things may have changed and she may have ideas on what airbrushes to go with. But certainly a decent external feed and a quality internal feed, dual action with interchangeable needles and color cups. Don't cheap out, the Badger 350 is as cheap as you want to go for an external mix but I'd stick with all Paasche for a beginner --even if she progresses and gets into it, years later she'll still be using them for something.