When it comes to painting buildings, rail cars, backdrops, or other items, you have a wide variety of choices in paints and applications.
What I am going to focus on is airbrushing.
For many years, airbrushing was expensive. It wasn’t the paints that cost so much; it was the airbrushes themselves. I remember in the early ’90s when I was working part-time at a local hobby store, the airbrushes we were selling ranged from $70.00 to $350.00, and if you didn’t have one already, you had to get a small air compressor.
Today, you can get a beginner’s airbrush set with a compressor, cleaning tools, and an extra needle for under $100.00. The best thing about it was the airbrush worked just fine.
Just recently, within the last 18 months or so, a new type of airbrush was introduced in the United States. The makers of this new airbrush claim there is no cleaning required.
That got my curiosity going, thinking how can that be true? For $30.00, I invested in one, and to my surprise, the claim of no cleaning for the most part is true.
Let me step back just a little bit and talk about paints.
In modeling, there are two basic types of paints to choose from: either oil-based or water-based.
The oil-based paints you may recognize are Testors, Tamiya, and a few others. Oil-based paints are great to use; they cover well, and you can get them in a wide variety of colors. The downside of oil-based paints is that you need a good cleaner that will break down the oil. Then there is the odor from both the paints and the cleaner. These oil-based paints have been around ever since I can remember and are very reliable.
The other type of paint is called acrylics. These are all water-based. There are many different manufacturers of acrylics, but some of the most readily available you might have seen are called Apple Barrel and FolkArt paints. They too come in a huge selection of colors; you can get them in gloss, matte, or even with glitter in them. These are very easy-to-work-with paints. You can thin them with water and blend them together to get unique colors. They are very low in odor and they clean up with a little soap and water. However, they don’t cover as nicely as oil-based paints, so many times you have to apply three or four coats to get the finish you want. What makes them so attractive is how little they cost. A single 2 oz bottle sells for under $1.00, and you can get a 10 or 12 bottle set for around $7 to $8.00.
When it comes to choosing paints for scenery and buildings on your layout, you have a lot of different colors to choose from, and you can get them in oil or water-based.
Now that we know a little bit about paints, just what can you or cannot use in an airbrush?
The first thing you need to know about airbrushing is just what the name says: air brushing. You are using compressed air to push the paint through a small nozzle. By mixing air with the paint, you get good coverage while using less paint.
When using an airbrush, the paint must be thin enough to be able to go through the 0.010 mm nozzle to mix with air from the compressor. If your mix is too thick, you will clog the nozzle, and you will get paint splatters instead of a smooth coverage. If you mix it too thin, then your paint easily runs and won’t stick to what you’re painting. So finding the correct dilution rate is critical. To make matters even worse, because of pigments in the paint, you can’t have a standard dilution rate; each color will thin out differently.
Oil-based paints are much easier to get a consistent dilution rate than acrylics. However, once you know the consistency you need for your airbrush, then you’re ready to go.
Now, I mentioned that there is a new cleanless airbrush. After I have used it for about six months now, my analysis of it is very favorable.
For the most part, you don’t have to clean it. Although you will want to clean the needle after use so the dried paint won’t clog it. Other than that, there is no need to take apart the airbrush to clean any internal parts. The other nice feature I noticed is you can decrease the air output of your compressor. You need only 10 to 15 psi for a good, even, consistent spray.
With the old-style airbrushes, when you held them, you could feel a little weight, making you feel like you had a quality piece of equipment. With the new clean-free airbrush, most of it is plastic, and there is very little weight to it. So while it may feel cheap and might even look cheap, it does do a fairly good job of getting paint where it needs to go.
The needles are very easy to replace, and are remarkably much cheaper than the regular airbrush needles. The one disadvantage is there are only two sizes of needles: a 0.5 and a 0.10 mm. I would like to see a few more larger size needles so the paint doesn’t need to be thinned down so much.
You need to thin the paint down to about the consistency of skim milk in order to not clog up the nozzle, which means your paint goes on a little wetter and thinner, requiring you to do a couple of coats to get a nice look.
I only use acrylics, so I don’t know how oil-based paints would work. I am sure that the oil-based paints, just like with a regular airbrush, will cover better.
I don’t use oil-based paints because I just don’t like the smell. So I would rather add a few more coats with acrylics than smell the oil-based paints.
The manufacturer of the cleanless airbrush is a Korean company named Dspaie. I am sure there are now other manufacturers making something similar; I just don’t know who they are. You can get this airbrush from a few online hobby stores, but you will need to search for the name of the airbrush to find out who sells it.
I do a a lot of airbrushing, and the more I use the Dspaie airbrush, the more I am liking it. For less than $40.00 and a box of 50 needles, it was worth it, along with the time saved of not having to tear my airbrush down every time to clean it.
Airbrushing is a skill that takes a little time to master. The more you airbrush, the better you will become.
So if you’re thinking about getting an airbrush, starting out with a no-clean airbrush is not a bad idea.
Until next time,
Happy Airbrushing!