I have had a airbrush with the propelant in my draw for ages and with the new Tamiya Leclerc arriving in August i chose to buck up the courage and decide to airbrush the 3 tone camo rather than brush paint it which is what i have bene doing for the last 3 years as i have got time to do a bit of practicing on a few old models!. In case it matters the airbrush is a "Badger airbrush spray gun! and the pot which holds the paint is below the nossle and is the size of tamiya acrylic pots.

First of all whay Psi should i be using the spray gun at for each section of the model? The airbrush ranges from 20 to 50psi!

Secondly do i need to combine paint thinner with the tamiya acrylics and if so what ratio does it need to be? Should i use more thinner for applying the black and brown onto the green for higher definition?! I have no idea! Also along this point, how much paint should i actualy place into the airbrush? Half a tamiya acrylic pot? a full one? etc

Also in many model magazines Humbrol Matt varnish has been used once painted and decaled to seal everything. Do i need to thin that?, is it worth doing for a model which wont be weathered and again how much should i use and 1 Psi


So many questions which i have no idea about! if someone could help me out and tell me anything i need to know which i havent thought of i would be most grateful! Tank You! :-)

Hi Will Im no expert on a.b.'s but i will try to help, first off your propellent isit a can of air if so does it have a regulator on it if not it wil be hard to control the air pressure a compressor is the way to go really for a.b.'s works out cheaper as well. If you can control the pressure 20 psi would be about right.Re the amount of paint, I have found a.b.'s very economial with paint for a 1/35 tank to do the base coat i would say 1/4 of a tamyia pot not to sure on what percentages but its around 75% paint to 25%thinners you will need much less for your camo but the % may change if you want a faded look you may need to add more thinner. with tamyia paints use their thinners or isopropyl alcohol from a chemist shop works just as good and is cheaper. Re Humbrol varnish ive never used it but most humbrol products can be thinned with white spirit. Now Im sure some other guys will give you more advice but remember with airbrushes practise practise and more practise.Hope this helps.

Well the can of propelant is made for the airbrush and is just a can of ait tbh. However the attachment which fits onto the can seems to have which opens and closes and another valve closer to the nip of the AB...becuase i have no way of knowing whay the psi is, should i wind it down to just above it lowest setting then? So do you mean i will need less thinner or less paint ratio when doing the camo or keep it the same as when i do the base coat of the nato green? Cheers for the help! i am currently gutted that i did not realise my model wont arrive till August, had my heart set on doing it in the next fews days!

One suggestion when using a can of propellant, is to place the can in a bowl, or bucket of WARM.... NOT HOT water. It will help stabilize the air pressure as the can empties.
Just remember Warm....... NOT HOT.
As the air expells, the water will cool, so you probably will have to added a little more WARM.... NOT HOT water to keep up the pressure.
If you do not place in water, you will watch the can frost up, as it frosts up, the pressure will drop.
I have no idea what cans cost these days, but if you are planning to continue airbrushing, I'd figure out the cost of cans verse the cost of a fairly decent compressor, you will find out the the compressor is the way to go. Or a larger CO2 tank set up, which can probably be refilled by a local gas supplier for the cost of one or two of those little cans of propellants, after the original cost of setting it up.

Wil, re the thinners on the Camo it depends on how you want your tank to look, factory fresh then use the same ratio as your base colour.If its to look like its been in the fireld for a while you will want a fade look you could even lighten the colour a little. re the air can try what you said open it a little see what the pressure is like, you wont need muchand that is good advice that Dave posted. Check out B&Q or any of those types of stores they do good cheap compressors I got mine for £70.00 Ive no complaints about it, compare that with £5.00 for a tin of air you will proberbly only get one model from it .

Easy_Co You say "isopropyl alcohol" is good for tamiya acrylic thinning, is that the same as isopropanol alcohol?...or is it different?

Also another new question is, for painting the tracks on the modern leclerc what sould i do? Rust them? Paint them a metal grey then drybrush with silver? Also i going to do a WWII Panther soon and i am not sure what the ebst way of makeing tracks look rusty is..any ideas?

Thanks easy you been realy helpful so far!

Will, cant say Ive heard of that alcohol you mentioned the old name for it is rubbing alcohol any chemist worth his salts should have it. Re the tracks unless it showroom condition I would add some rust start with matt black or very dark brown all over the tracks then you can start adding some rust colour, does the Leclerc have rubber pads if so you will need to paint them I would use a gey colour for them, you can make your rust look textured if you put a little baking soda on the tracks then soak the soda with your model glue then paint on your rust colour finally the part of the track that touches the road should look worn for this I use a ground up pencil lead I rub it on the raised detail, silver paint looks a bit bright for that look , the panthers tracks would be the same no rubber pads their all steel bit more rust because the german tanks were in the field for a long time, now check out some of the models in the galleries and see how it looks.hope this helps.

I went to my local chemist and he seemed certain that the alchohol sustances we speak of are both the same, which is good becuase i have already got some.

Modeling glue i.e. PVA? and not the polystyrene cement we use. I will definetly try out the backing soda on the panther tracks with lots of rust. Do i need some sort of grey metal undercoat for the leclerc tracks? I am not big into weathering becuase i generaly cock it up and i dont wish that to happen to my leclerc. I am looking for a relativly new look but not brand spanking new, so a bit of rust on the tracks and mild weathering on the running gear and lower hull. Any tips on how to do that?

You have been realy helpful and hope i am not boring you with my noobish comments and queries!

EDIT: I have just read the "painting tank treads" thread and the second way of painting rusty tracks (by scoccia) would most likely appeal to me. I would prime the track in black then spray with a rust colour. To your knowledge would "Vallejo - Model Air - 080 Rust" work well as the colour to spray my tracks with? Then i could easiuly dry brush with various colours!

yet another EDIT and another question : / I am also considering doing a wash and i have attempted it before, however when i applied the humbrol gloss finish and applied the wash the wash did not spread to the nooks and crannies but just stayed on the gloss surface as if i painted it. then when i applied the matt finish it remained glossy? Any tips?

Will, the Vallejo should work fine I have heard their good paints that post on painting tracks , those guys really know what they are talking about, if you follow any of their techniques you wont go wrong,re the rust on the Leclerc tracks, if you paint them silver or steel i think the model would not look real more toyish a touch of rust in the corners of the links should be enough remember that bare metal will get a layer of rust overnight in the open so you should add a little.re the wash Ive never had that problem did you brush the wash into the nooks and crannies and let it dry overnight then you can add the matt finish maybe you never stirred it enough ive read those finishes need a lot of stirring lots of guys on this site have had problems with them,you can always test it on an old kit first. your questions are not nobish, everyone has to start at some time you should see some of the questions I ask but thats what this site is all about. what i would suggest is to use the site more, digital diamonds is great full of ideas and how to do's makesure you post some pictures of this wagon thats the best way o get constructive critisism and advice.

I actualy applied the gloss all over the model and then applied the wash all over the model. Now thinking about it was that correct? Thinking about it now it may ake more sense just to apply the gloss to the areas i cant the wash to collect in then just apply the wash to those areas. Again this is speculation and i would appreciate some one correcting me if i am wrong! What happended to my model was it just appeared that i diluted some paint and painted the entire model with it and did not bring up the detail.

A compressor is on the cards however with me going to university in a few months and having to save as much cash due to the huge funds i will have to pay off i amlimited to how much i can spend on modeling at this point!

Thanks for the advice. I have just dug out my old tamiya m1a1 painted in desert camo and decided to sacrifice it for a wash test. i dusted it down and have just applied my humbrol gloss with a paint brush as thinnly as possible so its glossy but does not flatten out the detail. i will now wait till tommorow and apply the wash with raw umber. I would not use raw umber normaly on a desert tank but i just want a over emphasised wash to see if i have done it correctly.

One question which i feel stupid asking but is white spirit, paint thinner and terps all the same thing? I feel a #:-)

Cheers!

Hi Will, white spirit does the same job as Terps but its a lot cheaper and not so oily, I have found that its best to buy a good quality white spirit most d.i.y. shops have it. good luck with the uni.

Well this morning i have just applied a wash to my m1a1. I put of a blob of my oil paint (burnt umber) on my painting dish and added 5 times more volume of white spirit. Now the fun began! :-) Well the wash went ok when it actualy filled the groove i was aiming for it to fill. However 95% of the time i filled my brush dabbed it on the groove, it filled the groove but where the brush hit the model left a massive drip which ran! I was able to clear the drip up but instead of the wash drying uniformly, it dried weird. Dried in very fine lumps and the model looked liked a 12month baby attacked it with a used nappy! The only success i got was i appiled the same wash to the bergens etc that i stuck on to my newer m1a2. they were just green and looked very toyish. I loaded the brush and brown filed the many folds and creases in with the wash which ran into them. They now look a lot better. I ahve since given up on the thought of washes but am more heavily inclided to make dry mud to stick on the front lower hull, rear lower hull and running gear of my upcoming models! Am i right in thinking a good way of making mud is a mixture of baking soda, PVA glue water and the desired colour of the mud. Add gloss if i want it to look wet?

This is probably not thinned enough. Think if a wash as "tinted thinners" rather than "thinned paint". I make batch washes of paint in small glass jars that are slightly bigger than those individual servings of jam you get in some hotels. I'd add a blob of oil paint about the size of a pea to a jar full of turps / white spirit. Also make sure you use good quality oil paints because the pigment is finer and therefore runs easier and dries smother

I am using "Daler Rowney" georgian oil paints for artists from my local paperway which also does arts and crafts stuff. I hope they are high qaulity as i remember paying a good few pound for a 38ml tube. Any specificaly good oil paint brands you can suggest?

Well, the update is, my Panther arrived this morning and i had i fully assembled in 4 hours without rushing, I gave the model the base coat of halfords grey primer and decided to try out my airbrush with my new Tamiya Dark Yellow acylic. I read the instructions and put in with your estimate of 75% paint, 25% thinner which was isopropanol alcohok and decided to paint the lower hull first. If anything ent wrong, this is the least viewed area. I sprayed it with and found the finish to be fantastic except i used the entire bottle of paint just for the lower hull! Is this normal? How many pots of paint would you expect to use!

Also, i was having trouble figuring out which is the lowest Psi setting on te valve ontop on the propelant! If it is open fully the valve comes off, so is the lowest pressure when it nearly comes off or is it when the valve is fully closed down? My instructions do not tell me which! Just says find your desired pressure!

Please help Easy_Co in my our of need! I will also Pm to you!

Well i have just sent for another dark yellow and a vallejo air rust paint for the tracks. Will Isopropanol be a good thinner for Vallejo as well as Tamiya? They are both acrylics!

EDIT: Also i ahve been lookng at photos of the Leclerc and models of it, and i noticed the style of the 3 tone camo is different to that of other 2 tone camos. The base coat is green which is normal but the black and brown have very defined stops between the 2 colours. Hard to explain but look at the picture posted below, the middle of the hull. See where the green meets the brown then the black and then the brown again, the brown follows the same line as the black! Is that accomplishable with my airbrush? Or sould i reort to a brush?

EDIT: I have just attempted to spray my panther tracks with the vallejo air. I ended up using up half the bottle, a massive amount of paint is wasted on the backdrop newspaper due to the wide radius of the spray, the airbrush was atleast 20 cm away from the travks, yet pooling occured, and higher and the paint dissappeared altogether. And basicaly the tracks look crap, the paint for some reason did not get into the nooks and crannies of the tracks but just pooled on the higher surfaces. What i am getitng at, is despite everyones terrific help i am going stop airbrushing altogether. If i wish to continue i would have to buy more compressor more paints etc which is going to be £10 and i am expecting the saem awful results as i have now. I am having to resort back to brush painting.

I want to thank everyone who has helped me in the thread, unfortunatly i cant seem to be able to grasp airbrushing (and washes....lol) The help was much appreciated!