Hey! Im looking into a airbrush for christmas, and i have some things i need clarified.......

1. Is it better to use acrylic or enamal paints (consider flamability, whether its toxic or not, better quality,etc.)
2.what is a good airbrush to start with
3.i need a quiet compressor
4.Spray booth options for indoors

and any links to basic guides would be really helpfull

thanks for everything........

(this is my first post on here!!!!!!)

Hi Jordon, welcome to the big"A" Im a bit of a newbie with air brushing, I baught a badger200 and its worked a treat for me obviously there are better and more expensive brushes but for a starter i find this one ok and its very easy to clean which is important . I prefer spraying Acrylics much easier to use and to clean up but I do use enamels when I have no choice harder to clean up after. cant really help with the compressor as the u.s. market is much larger than the u.k. my compressor sounds like a Tiger reving up :-) i dont use a booth I spray in my conservory and leave both doors open but I guess health wise they are worth getting check out the site Im sure theres articles on building your own booth. best tip i can think of for air brushing is keep the air pressure low and go for light coats dont try to cover in one thick coat and keep the brush clean. hope this helps

Welcome Jordan

I would recommend an Aztec as a good learning AB. I would also recommend acrylic paint. It doesn't have the health issues you get with enamels. (You still don't want to breath a bunch of it though.) I use Model Master Acryl acrylics straight out of the bottle with good results. It eliminates the thinning ratio variable which I found helped me out a lot.
My compressor sounds like a B-52 so I cannot comment on that.
I use my AB in the basement and only shoot water based paint so I don't I don't have a fume hood.

I am by no means a AB expert, fair at best. I can based coat things well and am learning, slowly, to paint thin lines for cammo.

One final word, go slow and keep trying. They can be frustrating...

Shaun

Welcome aboard Jordan. Glad to have you with us.

In order to help you with some of your decisions, a 'ballpark' figure of how much $$ you have available will greatly assist us in helping you choose. I know you mention "for Christmas", so you may not even know. A good guess would help though.

In any event, when it came time for me to make a decision for myself, I went with the Aztec A470 and a Porter Cable compressor with a tank. The Aztec is very versatile and easy to learn. It is a duel action AB, and comes with a few different nozzles for different spraying needs.
I went with a compressor with a tank because I figure I will only have the noise until the tank is filled, (about 2 mins.) afterwards it's silent while I spray. A typical AB compressor runs constantly. The more expensive ones ($150 - 200) are fairly quiet.
I do not use a booth because I spray outdoors. I use acrylics only.

Hi jordan! Welcome to the big A.

My advice would be to look into a badger 150. Its a double action airbrush and runs for about 150$ cdn. I only have a medium nozzle and i can get realy thin nice lines. As for Paints it doesnt realy matter, it depends which you prefer, althought if painting in room id use acrylics, which i prefer, because there easy to clean, easy to thin and i get ncie results.

Francois

thanks guys for everything. you guys are so helpful!!

anyways, another thing is that if paint won't stick well to the model (or whatever) when you airbrush in the cold (my garage) would painting in my basement back room (with a large furnace and hunting amuntition) be safe if i used acrylics only, as there non flammable?

As for a spray booth, i guess i might just get a tri-fold peice of cardboard and a flat peice over newspaper.

thanks again for the tips.