Hi All

I have recently joined the world of airbrushing and iam experiencing a problem which i could really do with some help with.

The airbrush i purchased was the starter Kit, Premi-Air G35 airbrush and Baby compressor. My budget could not extent to much more and as iam only a beginner i did not want anything too expensive.

Now on to the problem:

Iam spraying using Humbrol enamels mixed to a milky consistancy and the only way i seem to get the paint to escape from the air brush is to have the air pressure at full and lever pulled back fully.

Even when this is carried out there is still not alot of paint being covered over the subject. It is more a dusting. I would have thought that to achieve a dusting lower pressure would be required and not full pressure.

Sorry if this sounds like a silly question.

Your help will be much appreciated.

Brad

Brad,

Try thinning your paint a little more. The "milk" thing is just a starting point. You will find that some paints require more thinning and some less. You will also have to adjust your pressure settings too.

If that doesn't work, do you know the needle size in your airbrush, perhaps it is not suitable for what you are asking it to do.

I am not familiar with the particular airbrush you bought. If it is on the cheaper side, sometimes it pays to wait and save for something that is of better quality.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

cbreeze

Hey Charles.

Thank you for your help. I will try thinning the paint more and more untill i find a consistancy that works.

The Premi-Air G35 features a 0.35mm needle.

Do you think this is a suitible needle size for painting 1/35 scale armor?

Brad

Yours is the 4th post I have seen regarding problems of spray painting with Humbrol paint and yours is a different airbrush. All of the previous posters who thought they had a fault with the airbrush were down to the paint, and a switch to Tamiya paints cured all their issues at a stroke. I believe that something Humbrol has done to its paint range is having a negative effect.

Darren Baker has the right idea for sure. It will not cost to much money to experiment with a different paint (Tamiya seems to be very forgiving). If it works, you will know that the fault lies with the paint.....not the brush.
Also, try simply pushing water through at 18-20psi. If it flows through, you know you do not have a blockage of some sort.
Also, once you sort out your paint to thinner issue, you will find that building up somewhat "dusty" layers of paint on your model is the way to go anyway. I would say you should get better initial coverage than "dusty" but on the other hand you will not want to clobber you model with paint in one pass. You will find that several light misted coats will give you a better finnish.

an 0.35 nozzle is designed to spray enamels, acrylics, lacquers, etc so Humbrol enamels should work. sounds like there may be a bad batch of Humbrol paints in some people's hands (bummer because i always found them to work really well with great coverage).

the tip about spraying clear medium such as water is a great one. just in case the airbrush is clogged try spraying a bit of paint thinner to see if that gives you lots of fluid coming out. at a 15-20 psi you should be seeing fluid coming out well with the trigger pulled back. if you sprayed not-thinned-enough paint through the gun it may be clogged so you may want to take it apart and clean it well (also, if you are using a bottle paint container make sure the tiny hole in the cap is not plugged up with paint).

just hang in there, you will get to know your airbrush the more you use it. the most expensive guns can get messed up as much as the most value-priced gun. everything you learn with a budget gun can be applied to the next step up purchase. also, people have bought cheap ultrasonic cleaners at Walmart to clean guns really well... may be something to check out. cheers, bd.

If you are new to airbrushing you are probably going to find out that finding a paint that works for you may be a little frustrating. I found that enamels are pretty bullet proof but can be hard on the lungs. I tried almost all the acrylics and found that Tamiya and Gunze are probably the best, however I recently discovered that Vallejo really works well for me. I have for years tried to get MM acrylics to spray well but have never been able to get consistent results. For some reason, what works well for one person might not work well for another. This has been my personal experience with MM. I have tried all the different ways out there to get satisfactory results all the time but have pretty much given up.

I have not sprayed Humbrol in years and would agree with the other responders that the paint, rather than the airbrush might by your problem. If you want to test your airbrush, get a bottle of acrylic Vallejo Model Air. It is pretty much idiot proof sprayed from the bottle. If you are going to use it on a build, I would put down a primer first just to be safe. The only way you are going to get good results with your airbrush is practice, practice, practice.

Hope this helps you,

cbreeze

I generally spray water through my airbrush before mixing and shooting paint to see if there any obstructions and to establish a baseline flow rate and spray pattern, which is a technique I learned while using airguns. What this has helped teach me is that most of the problems I encounter are with the paint mixtures themselves, not the airbrush. I ran into the same problem as you, but with Gunze instead of Humbrol. What I found is that I needed to thin the paint mixture more than I normally would with other paints such as Tamiya, otherwise I either end up shooting strings or barely dusting the model as is your current situation.

The G-35 is actually a decent brush for the money. It's made by Sparmax for several different companies. A .35 needle is perfect for 1/35 armor. You can do pretty tight camo but if you open it up you can do a base coat. Definitely do what the guys have suggested and spray water or thinner through it. This brush should be able to shoot thin lines at 5 -15 PSI.

Hello,
I agree with Matthew, the G35 is a very reasonable airbrush.
However, as an user of Humbrol paints for airbrushing, I can tell you your problems will come most probably from the paint. Milky consistency should be OK, however the thinner itself may be an issue, and if you have properly stirred up the paint as well. (With certain thinners Humbrol does not seem to mix correctly and small clogs of pigment remain in the mixture, so small that you don't even see them). Using a better thinner (either the factory thinner or pure lacquer thinner with above 90% lacquer thinner content) may help, warming up the paint may help, or filtering paint with a scrap piece of pantyhose may also help.

One thing I have discovered recently is to not thin my paints (WEM enamels) in the airbrush itself. For some reason my airbrush, an Iwata HP-C Plus, does not like this. I've gone back to mixing the paint and thinner in a separate container and then pouring the mixture into my airbrush.

Brad,

Your airbrush is good kit, so the problem is probably not with its capabilities.

I haven't sprayed any Humbrol paints in years, but as I recall, the pigments were fairly coarse for model paints and it benefited from straining after mixing. (Which probably says more about my skills and technique at the time than about the paint itself.)

So, I suspect that your airbrush tip is clogged, along with the channel that the needle passes through between the paint cup and the tip. A thorough cleaning is most likely in order. You'll need to remove the needle and tip to do this. Simply spraying clean thinners through the brush will not remove the dried up paint that's literlally clogging up the works. You might find that the needle is difficult to draw out from the airbrush because it's dirty and the dried paint wants to keep it from pulling through the air packing. This is a sure sign that your airbrush is over due for cleaning.

There are special micro-fine brushes that are sold for this job, and I'm loath to offer up expedient techniques since they can easly lead to split tips and damaged screw threads. However, I can tell you that I use a wooden cocktail stick (tooth pick) trimmed down to a needle-fine point and laquer thinner to clean my airbrush tips. Wire and sewing needles are a recipe for damage. Just be careful that you don't force anything through your tip and distort it. The same goes for your airbrush needle. Be careful not to bend it. All in all - just be gentle and patient. You'll get faster with experience. Detailed dissasembly and cleaning are just part of using an airbrush.

There are also proprietary airbrush cleaning fluids and foams that might make the job easier. I can't offer any advice on any of those.

As for the Humbrol paint: You can make a very usable paint strainer to remove lumps from your mixed and thinned paint from a few square inches of panty hose material and the corner of an ordinary mailing envelope. Cut the envelope corner from the envelope in a pie-shape. Cut the very corner / tip off of this. Stretch the panty hose material across the small tip opening and tape it to both sides. Then open the pie-shaped envelope section into a small funnel with the panty hose covering the little opening. Pour your thinned paint through this and it will catch any lumps, etc and keep them from clogging up your airbrush.

(You can actually buy these paint strainers pre-made, but the small ones are hard to find. Auto painters use them.)

Alternatively (and what I tend to do now), you can mix and thin your airbrush paint in a separate container, allow it a few moments for any lumps to settle out, then use an eye dropper to draw thinned paint from the top of the mixture leaving any problems on the bottom of the jar.

I think that if you give your brush a good cleaning and watch out for lumpy paint in the future, you'll be good to go. Over time, when you notice a drop in the performance of your airbrush, you'll know it's time to give it its next good cleaning.

HTH,
MIke