Based on the advice from the members, I bought an Iwata Revolution CR with 0.5 nozzle to use mainly for single color schemes - nothing fancy

First, I would like to thank Mr. Greg Smith (TopSmith) for recommending this AB.. I had been using a couple of no-name Chinese AB's up till now, and when I used this one.. WOW!! It was like upgrading from an old used Yougo to a brand new Mercedes I've sprayed several times with it since yesterday evening.. several different colors.. one that turned out to have some clumps in it.. and it did not suffer from blockage one single time.. Of course I still have a long way to go to get the results I want, but I guess now it's just a matter of practicing to get the right dilution/air pressure combination.

Anyway, I know this AB is not meant for detail work, but I just thought I'd see how it does.. and I ended up with this mess. The brown is MIG Ammo tracks primer straight from the bottle - no thinner. So, what causes this splatter and horrible over-spray.. Is it just thick paint that causes that? How do I fix it?

By the way, what Iwata do you recommend for camouflages and things like that?



Hisham

Try a bit of thinner , and maybe play with the air pressure . It look like its spraying grainy .

As Edmund said, try thinner. You may have some debri, in the nozzle. If you don't have a reamer, I would suggest using a toothpick. Remove the nozzle and ream it. You may want to adjust your psi slightly. Of course, this is all after testing thinned paint.

What PSI are you shooting at?

Like the others have said try to thin the paint down a bit and lower the psi. Also note that you are using 0.5mm so the default diameter of your spray is really larger than what you might have been used to and the amount of paint you will be releasing per mm that you pull on the trigger will be much more.

Thin the paint, maybe tinker with less air-p and cut your paint supply down, and maybe get closer to the surface.

I suggest going for ca 10 -15psi in general - the more air pushing through, the more paint. You can also get a "needle-set" handle which limits the needle-travel and thus limits the amount of paint you feed to the needle and air-stream. This helps some of us a LOT as it simplifies the control action so that you can focus more on controlling the amount of air being used. Good for those of us with older, stiffer hands!

You can, I believe, buy a smaller needle and nozzle-set and swap these into your AB for finer lines and work - at least this capability is true for Iwata HP-CS brushes. A 0.3 or 0.25 needle will give you a much thinner line and tighter edges- but because the effective spray area is smaller, the smaller needle will reduce ability to easily cover larger areas. The trade-off.

If I may suggest; If the wallet has sufficient capacity, consider getting a second good AB with a thinner needle-set to use in tandem when you work - and a 2- or 3-line air manifold to allow you to have both hooked up and ready to use at the same time.

Bob

I don't think it's a problem with your AB.. i get the same results with nearly all waterbased acrylics and never got it "perfect" (for me) like i can achieve with solvent base paints.

The problematic paints are Vallejo ModelAir, Mig and AK acrylics... the only thing you can try to reduce this effect is to use a flow improver and thinning the pain + spraying with 0,7-1bar (10-15psi)

But that are only my experiences.. maybe im to stupid to get it right too

cheers Chris

Water based paints for all their benefits are the biggest pain in the butt ! Try Tamiya paints and see how it sprays . And use the x20a thinner .

Maybe try some retarder also ?

Add thinner & adjust your pressure..using your regulator..oh wait..you don't have one.

Sorry to say, that's exactly how I feel What makes it worse is that I see all these guys in videos on YouTube painting with these true acrylic paints, and they make it look so easy.. they just pour the paint out of the bottle and start spraying, without any thinner or anything, and it works every single time

The reason I'm trying to paint with these paints is that now Tamiya paints are only shipped via surface mail which takes 2 to 3 months to get here, or sometimes even longer than that. So, it's just that paints like MIG Ammo and AK and Vallejo are much easier to get online.

What's really strange is that I actually got some great results using acrylics.. but I can't figure out what made things work like they should those times.. and I can't seem to get those same results again

For example.. I base coated this Enigma with a rust color from an AK rust set.. straight from the bottle without any thinner.. and with the old cheap AB.. and it went on great and smooth without any graininess or spots or anything.. but for some reason, I wasn't able to get that same result again



Anyway, I ordered a compressor with a tank and a regulator.. and I've also ordered some Tamiya paint retarder, but I won't be getting it before 2 or 3 months I guess I'll just keep trying in the meantime.

Thanks for all your help

Hisham

Try eBay , I get paints from Taiwan and Korea and it take 7 to 10 days to the USA . I just ordered some Mr Hobby aqueous paint , you can't get those in the USA and it came in a weeks time .

David.. I do have a small valve by Tamiya that attaches to the AB itself to allow me to decrease or increase the pressure.. So, I have been playing around with different thinner to paint ratios and pressure levels, but the paint is either too thick and "splattery".. or too thin and runny.. although I add thinner drop by drop.. and change air pressure very gradually.

Theoretically, I know what should be done... but just can't get it right

I guess this hobby is just not for everybody

Hisham

I use my Iwata Revolution CR for base coats but i use my Iwata HP-C Plus for fine lines. It takes a lot of practice but if you get good at it you'll never have to use fun tak again!

Did you try the old cheap airbrush with this paint by chance , try it and see what happens . It that works then you can blame this airbrush .

you mentioned that you added thinner drop by drop. Are you mixing paint in the paint cup? If so, how do you do it?

My thought. The paint is too thick and you have to increase the air pressure to shoot it. You also talked about humidity/ temp as a possible problem. A solution would be to try thinning the paint. I haven't used Mig products before but try a 4 parts paint to 1 part thinner (water if acrylic) or 3 parts paint to 1 part thinner. Mix well in a separate container and pour into airbrush. Turn the air pressure down until it is off. Slowly increase the pressure until you like the spray pattern. One of your problems is you don't have a pressure gauge to help adjust the air pressure. Set up several sheets of copy paper on a piece of card board to practice/ experiment on. If the paint is still not smooth then a couple drops of paint retarder will help slow the dry time and allow the paint to level out before drying.

There are many sites that talk about painting issues, show the pattern and tell how to trouble shoot either the pressure, mixing issues,drying issues,orange peel, etc.... I bet the Iwata site has a trouble shooting section. Don't worry, The problem is simple, the airbrush is good and you will quickly sort it out and will know what to do the next time an issue like this surfaces.

Try this site
http://blog.workbenchwarriors.com/2014/03/30/getting-started-with-airbrushing-part-2-2/

I would agree with Greg. To thick paint OR you got stuff stuck in the nozzle

You can try to remove the nozzle cap as he suggest on that website. I do that all the time with my Neo which just wont work properly if i have it on

Well, I did some more practicing.. I did manage to keep the graininess down to a minimum.. I used the paint without thinner and the max pressure (which on my compressor is somewhere between 20 and 25 psi) but I barely pulled the trigger back.. I did extremely light coats. But the problem with this is that it's not practical for base coating a whole tank.. it would take forever to cover the whole model. I need to find a way where I can get good coverage for large areas without the paint being too thick or runny. When I pull the trigger all the way back, the paint actually goes on the model wet and takes a long time to dry.. and ends up with some slight rippling effect.. It's not really horrible, but I would like to be able to get better results than that.

Anyway, here's a couple of the tries I did today.. I painted the fork with MIG Ammo's US interior green.. and the M113 external tank with MIG Ammo's IDF Sinai Grey.. both straight from the bottle.. I find them acceptable.. but not "nice"





So, the quest continues
Hisham

And thanks for that link, Greg.. it's very helpful

And thanks for all your advice, guys.. I'm learning a lot

Hisham

A modeler with out an airbrush is like a kitchen with out a knife .

I too have suffered from the AMMO, AK, Vallejo Model Air blues, Im getting better but not "there" yet.

Watch Paul's videos on Airbrushing...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrdcVbQE5fUvTKxMbhnN_KQ/videos

. Do we have to be that specific ?

I'm looking at your last two images... What's wrong with them!? They do look perfect to me. Are my standards too low or am I overlooking the obvious here?

By the way, I'm struggling with the same problems with SOME Revell (anthracite, different greens) and Mig (chipping, sand) paints.

Cheers,
Cristian

likewise, the left part of the fork shows minimal splatter considering the paint was not thinned. I think you would need to post better macro pictures since based on the 2 pics, I think the paint looks fine.