Think I've narrowed down my new airbrush choices

[VF-19]

Air source is a big point with me...does anybody know of a good, relatively quiet airsource that isn't too expensive. Other members of the family might not be too happy to hear a loud compressor going at 2am (when i do most of my work). I've thought about rigging a CO2 tank for airbrushing, has anybody tried this? Or does anybody have any more suggestions?

Well, if you go the cheap route, then there really isn't any quiet air compressors out there. What you could do is get a noisy air compressor with a large tank, fill the tank up during the day, and then use the stored air at night. Since you're airbrushing mostly at or around 20 psi, a 2 gallon tank at 100-150 psi will last you for quite a bit.

Oh, and David, there is one other thing I forgot to mention when you buy your airbrush: Ease of getting spare parts and the cost of spare parts. It really would suck to have something break on an airbrush only to find that the spare part is really expensive, and it will take you more than a month to get the part in.

[David Hingtgen]

At the moment I'm leaning towards a tank-only air supply, to fill at the gas station. Then will save up for a while for a truly silent high-end compressor. (I hate noise). Anyone have a ratio for "size of tank versus how much you can airbrush" or something? Wonder how big (or actually, how small) of a tank to get. Smaller would be easier to lug around, bigger of course wouldn't need to be filled as often. But another factor is the "lugging it in and out of the house to actually spray".

Local Wal-Mart (well, the one 20 miles away, not the 5 mile one) has a surprisingly good selection of air stuff, can get a nice regulator and filter/moisture trap, and lots of fittings.

[wm cheng]

My compressor is the Italian made SilAir (by Werther International) it is model S.A. 15 with a 1 gallon tank and 88psi max pressure with auto shut-off and it came with a really high quality regulator and oil & moisture tap. I think the closest thing to it now is the SilentAire DR150 at around $465usd but mine is 1/3HP. Man, its truely silent - I often forget and leave it on for days...

The 1 gallon tank doesn't last long, maybe 15min or so (till the compressor kicks in to top it up again), but the comrpessor automatically kicks in at 8 bars and shuts off at 10 bars (its european, so I don't know what a bar is compared to psi) but it never lets the tank fully exhaust, unless I turn off the unit. One can only effectively use I would say 1/2 the capacity of the tank - since after that, it no longer can maintain an constant 20 psi or so that is needed - it eventually just trickles out. I found that out the hard way (I bought a tank that can be refilled at a gas station) and it's capacity wasn't long enough - I was always worried that I was going to run out at some critical moment. Now, its sitting around - taunting me as a lesson (don't cheap out). It just became too much effort to go out and refill it every 15-20mins!

Please get your moisture & oil tap at an airbrush art supply store, not a hardware store. The filter sizes and tolerances between a pneumatic power tool's requirement and a fine artist airbrush are like night and day! In fact, many pneumatic power tools require a certain amount of atomized oil in the air supply to lubricate the parts - which would be disasterous when trying to paint a model

Remember; "you get what you paid for..." if its too good to be true, it probably is... little grasshopper - okay off my soap box now

[bhop]

I live in an apartment in Los Angeles with neighbors all around. I paint inside (by a window) and nobody's ever complained of noise. I own the Iwata SprintJet, which I think is around $149 on dixieart. It's pretty quiet, has a built in moisture trap, and is well worth the price, especially since it costs twice as much everywhere else, and also considering how much I use it (which is a helluva lot).

I personally wouldn't waste time with a refillable tank. Although I don't know how valid my opinion is since I haven't actually used one, I imagine the pressure wouldn't stay steady as you use the air inside up (edit: actually, wm seems to have mentioned that up there), plus the whole, taking it down to the station to refill it all the time seems like a pain in the butt.

Edited June 29, 2004 by bhop

[David Hingtgen]

I could care less about the neighbors, it's me that the noise concern is for. As in, I get annoyed by the hum my VCR makes when it turns on...

If nothing else, canned air is quiet.

[bhop]

Well.. if you want professional results, then there are some things you have to deal with, in this case, a little compressor noise, which isn't really that big a deal (in my opinion anyways). You could always wear ear plugs ...

I guess if noise is really that much of a problem, then give the tank a try, and if it doesn't work out, then at least you'll know from personal experience.

[David Hingtgen]

Well one of the problems I encounter is that absolutely nobody says anything more than "pretty quiet" "fairly quiet" "fairly loud" or "really loud" for any particular compressor. And two people can call the same compressor "quiet enough to sleep by" and "loud enough to wake up neighbors 4 doors down". I really need numbers/accurate descriptions. People are quite fond of saying "90 decibels" for something that's like 40...

Also still wondering about Iwata Sprint Jet. And Scorpion II: http://www.dixieart.com/Silentaire_Scorpion_Compressors.html

Edited June 29, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Commander McBride]

I have a no-name compressor, but I do know that it's essentially an Iwata without the Iwata name on it. (It's made by the same factory, with the same design, and the same quality, just minus the Iwata label and half the price. Kind of like the Gunze airbrushes. (Which, IIRC, are actually Iwatas.) Anyway, it's quite quiet. I'd say it's about as loud as an idling car. (At least as loud as my car, anyway) (To put it in focus, I can't mute a TV because the noise of the CRT pisses me off, and I can't sleep with my PC's fans on) It is well built, and provides a very smooth air supply. (My old one pulsated, you could feel it near the end of it's life like "pff pff pff" instead of "pffffffffffff".) Anyway, I can only imagine that the Iwatas are just about the same, so I'd recommend one. And if this one is still too loud, you could always get a tank and just use the compressor to fill it.

Edited June 29, 2004 by Commander McBride

[Mallet21]

I've got a 10lb air tank set-up and it works really slick. I fill it up to 125 psi at the gas station and I can get through a Hase VF-1 (base coat, clear coat, clear coat and dull-coat) without having to refill. I prime with the a Tamiya rattle can and spray at 15 psi. The nice thing is its cheap, silent and compatible with a compressor if I choose to upgrade in the future.

Its probably not as convenient as a regular air-compressor, but its definately better and cheaper than using cans of compressed air.

[Vince]

I havea Iwata smartjet and a badger(the cheapest one).The badger is loud as of drive me crazy loud, the smartjet on the other hand make less noise than my dryer, I do like it.

[David Hingtgen]

At the moment I'm leaning towards just an airtank but with a high-quality regulator etc to start with. Then (if refilling tank becomes tedious) snagging an Iwata Sprintjet or Createx TC2000, or something along those lines.

Airbrush still undecided, anywhere from Badger 200 to Iwata Eclipse.

Dixieart.com has nice TC2000+Iwata packages...

PS--wondering about necessity/advantages of quick-connects for the airhose etc.

[Vince]

Before I got my Iwata, I looked at this airmaster. This one is designed for bakery, it was my first choice. Didn't get it because of the price, it was $200+ a couple years ago. Check it out, look around online and you should be able find a lower price.

example from Micro-Mark

http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?M...roduct&ID=81748

[Vince]

At the moment I'm leaning towards just an airtank but with a high-quality regulator etc to start with. Then (if refilling tank becomes tedious) snagging an Iwata Sprintjet or Createx TC2000, or something along those lines.

Airbrush still undecided, anywhere from Badger 200 to Iwata Eclipse.

Dixieart.com has nice TC2000+Iwata packages...

PS--wondering about necessity/advantages of quick-connects for the airhose etc.

I think air tank is a good idea. However, as you are painting, the psi drop and might not have enough pressure in a small tank to finish the painting session.

As of the air brush, I think Iwata is easier to take care of than the Badgers, I would pick a DA Eclipe over a Badger 200 anytime, and I think you would have more fun with it too.

Quick releases are useful when swapping airbrushes quickly. I say don't worry until you get a second airbrush. Besides, most good compressors can suppport two airbrushes at the same time anyway. With the first airbrush, I would spend my money on dual action, respirator, and a good braided hose.

[Vince]

just found the airmaster home page in my old bookmarks

http://www.kopykake.com/ac_compressor_airmaster.html

[tetsujin]

At the moment I'm leaning towards a tank-only air supply, to fill at the gas station.  Then will save up for a while for a truly silent high-end compressor.  (I hate noise).  Anyone have a ratio for "size of tank versus how much you can airbrush" or something?  Wonder how big (or actually, how small) of a tank to get.  Smaller would be easier to lug around, bigger of course wouldn't need to be filled as often.  But another factor is the "lugging it in and out of the house to actually spray".

I look forward to hearing how that works out - it'll help me when I try to advise other people trying to get into airbrushing.

Maybe another option would be to get yourself a reasonably large tank (maybe 10 gallon or so) and a noisy-but-cheap compressor capable of filling the tank. That way filling the tank is convenient and you'll have a reasonable amount of work time (maybe) - and you'll just have to deal with the refilling noise when the air runs out. (You could go somewhere else while it's refilling, I guess...) On the other hand, it sounds like you won't really have a dedicated work area, so lugging a 10 gallon tank out to the yard and back probably isn't a great prospect.

I guess the capacity of tank you want depends on your needs. For me, the 2 gallon (?) tank on my CH compressor, pressurized to 100 PSI by the compressor, is (without refilling) adequate for a substantial piece of work but not a large amount of work. I could maybe fill the tank, and spray all the parts of a 1:144 Gundam kit with 1 layer of paint, and then need to refill the tank. Working normally (that is, refilling the tank any time the pressure drops to around 50 PSI) I probably refill the tank 6-8 times or more during a single session. If you're taking the tank somewhere to be pressurized, then they may fill it up to a higher capacity than what my CH can muster... that and a larger tank would give you more work time, but I don't know in practical terms how much.

But as you've said, you're mainly looking right now to spray base coats with this thing... so a lower capacity may be OK.

As for quick-disconnects... I was looking into that when I bought my Iwata recently. It just didn't seem to be worth it. Those things are pretty expensive, and I actually don't disconnect my airbrush from the air supply so often anyway.

Edited June 30, 2004 by tetsujin

[EXO]

Before I got my Iwata, I looked at this airmaster. This one is designed for bakery, it was my first choice. Didn't get it because of the price, it was $200+ a couple years ago. Check it out, look around online and you should be able find a lower price.

example from Micro-Mark

http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?M...roduct&ID=81748

That's the one I was looking at before also. I may still get it at that price. It's suppose to be really quiet.

[David Hingtgen]

.5cfm at 20psi---don't know if that'd be sufficient for some things. Would probably work for a lot of paint/brush combos, but many Iwata's say they need 25psi at .5cfm for optimum flow for anything moderately thick. (I spray acrylics, and like to thin as little as possible)

[Vince]

I personally don't use anything as high as 20 psi, but then the biggest thing I've was 1/60 gundam. 20+ psi is a bit high for my teste, I use around 18 psi to spray larger areas, it works for my ok becasue I like to use drier paint on smaller areas. it has a lot to do with the mixture being spray, and the size of the surface being spray. that's one thing you need to play around and find out for yourself.

[David Hingtgen]

I also paint large model ships, with 3-foot long hulls. I can go through paint like an ounce a minute at "full blast". I need "large areas painted VERY smoothly" more than anything else. Not fine lines. I want quality, but for smoothness, not narrow lines. So many "fine" airbrushes max out at 1 inch.

[Vince]

In that case, an air source that can provide up to 25 psi+ continuously might be a good idea, a regulator should do the trick. the little airmaster probably wouldn't cut it. internal mix airbrush usually don't spray much wilder the 3 to 6 inches, of cause one can spray further away, as long as the pigment is not completely dried before hitting the surface.

Now I think the Paasche might meet your need better, I've heard a lot of folks being very happy with the Paasche V. However, I'm still recommending a dual action, I like some room to grow into.

I've heard a lot of people set up their air tanks indoor, and connect the compressor outdoor. I think most brake and tire garages power the air tools this way.

[aaajin]

Hi,

Im a newbie in modelling an all dat...and I'm currently lookin forward to buy an Iwata HP-C. I found this neato website that sells em cheaper than any other sites (HERE)....and just wondering...has anybody dealt with em? How was the service?. And the most ijmportant Q of the day...are they trust worthy?

Thanks n help is much appreciated~!

aaajin

edited : opps...looks like its an incomplete airbrush...

Edited October 14, 2004 by aaajin

[HWR MKII]

i use a revell/germany dual action internal mix airbrush and have had good results.see examples on my 1/16 tigers in the background of my arii destroid monster build thread. i use an inexpensive testors compressor that has a valve for adjusting the outgoing air pressure for different tips and lines. the airbrush comes with fine point and standard needles and tips. its worth the money in my book and can be found online anywhere. total cost for both the brush and compressor is around 225 USD new.

Edited October 15, 2004 by HWR MKII