hi considering buying a airbrush is it possible to airbrush indoors or is there to much overspray meaning i,ll still have to spray out doors or can someone recomend extraction ideas or do air brushes not prouduce much overspray into the air >??? i,ve been using tamiya ts tins for the first time very pleased with the results but working out expensive many thanks for any advice

I spray indoors, but I spray in my basement and I have plenty of ventilation. I guess it all depends on where you plan on spraying. Generally I dont have much over spray.

Sean

I, too, spray in the basement. There's a powerful exhaust fan over my bench. If I use Floquil, htere;s some odor, but anything else is unnoticeable. Unlike cans, overspray is almost non-existent. Look at the tight patterns people get on their aircraft and camoed armor. You're typipcally pushing no more than 15 PSI of air and working not more than a couple inches form you subject for a base color and at a quarter inch or less for patterns.

I spray indoors mostly.. Don't have all that much overspray but I tend to put a box on the desk and/or some cardboard to use as a cheapo one or two use spraybooth..

My ventalation isn't that good so I wear a 2 stage painters respirator the kind where you can't even smell the paint untill you take it off....... remember take care of your lungs

thanks guys this is excellant news i didn,t think there could be a lot of overspray due to some of the work i,ve seen as stated above can i spray humbrol enamels with an airbrush or do you have to use fast drying acrylics?? thanks for the mask advice delbert but i smoke so lungs already abused but point taken and thanks my work room is a small 12 x 12 box room with a fridge in it it does have a window as well so hopefully all will be good :-) :-)

No issues spraying enamels with an AB indoors. You do need some type of ventilation though. The fumes from thinnes, esp. with enamels, can cause problems. I spray enamels all the time in the garage and I used to use them in the Officer's Quarter's in Korea, basically a dorm room. It did have a window that I would open though. I exclusively use Testor's Model Master enamels, which I have been told are pretty much the same as Humbrol enamels.

With the climate we have in Canada if I didn't AB indoors I would never get anything painted!

Like the others said make sure too have some sort of ventilation and you should be okay. I havn't had a problem yet using my AB in the basement where my room is.

Jeff

As te others suggested,. you can put just about anything into an AB, from benign acrylics to pretty heavy duty automotive laquers. Just be mindful of the thinner fumes from the "hotter" paints, regardless of your smoking history.

For years I airbrushed indoors. Always with at least one fan in the window to exhaust the fumes, and a good fresh air supply.
I now use a spray-booth, and the truth is I wish I would have bought one years earlier. Makes life, breathing, and clean up a lot easier. I recently added a sheet of plastic that drops down over the front of the booth when not in use, and for drying models. Helps keep the dust out of the spray-booth. (real high tech- a piece of an old vinyl shower curtain..... :-) )

Pod i also AB indoors and i use always humbrol enamels!
I were gloves(medical) and i mask and place a cardboard or a newspaper behind the model to stop the overspray if there is any!!
After i'm done if the weather is good i open my window to get some clean air in the room and clear the fumes of the thinners!!
Cheers and happy AB!!!

I used to AB in doors ,but the smell upset SWMBO the boy and the cat
I'm in the shed now (scooter,and motor cycle covered) as I use rattle cans for priming , they do make a lot of painty dust!
The AB's very good at non painty dust,but I use a large cardboard box,ie tv box ,cut and opened up as a booth,I also leave the door wide open and wear a twin filter mask
Using an AB outside can be tricky,wind,flys etc!!

As others have allready pointed out, you can most certainly airbrush indoors. In fact, I would question if one could do it outdoors with any sort of acceptable result what with wind blowing away half your paint and dust and insects joining your paint on the surface.

Airbrushing has virtually no "waste" or overspray as compared to a spray paint can. Almost all the product gets to the model whereas with a spray can most of it actually doesnt. For this reason spray cans actually should NOT be used indoors IMO, even with breathing protection, because you are putting a LOT of product into the air.

The dangers involved with airbrushing are proportional to the solvent, Laqers being by a wide margin the worst. Like spray cans, even with a proper organic vapour mask I wont use them indoors, which is to say I would never use them at all. At the other end of the spectrum are acrylics: when doing fine airbrushing there may be no fumes to speak of, at least no more than would be present when hand brushing (though for the record you are still suppose to use an appropriate mask). Enamels are somewhere in the middle and definetly warrant an effort to actively evacuate from the house the airbour product.

i have always used my ab indoors, and nearly exclusively use humbrol enamels, but i'm a painter by trade so i don't notice the smell of paint too much. i use the spare bedroom for my modelling and opening the window seems fine to me, but i work in a new paint smelling enviroment all the time. the one thing to be careful of is cleaning your ab, when i blow turps through mine it makes a pretty big cloud of poisonus spirits, but i can point it out of the window and blast away, so maybe one of those claening stations might be a good idea