I got tired of mixing a lot of paint for small things and areas and wasting most of it. The other day I had a brainwave. Using a disposable pippette I got small amounts of paint and water and dropped them in my AB gravity cup. Then I took the pippette, put the tip in the bottom of the cup and suck/blew the mixture in and out of the pippette 6-7 times - result: perfectly mixed minute quanity of paint. Washed out the pippette and its good to go again. No more waste paint


Brian

that's pretty much what i do. i usually use valejo paints so i'll count out the drops to mix up the paint into the AB cup, add the water with a dropper and stir it up with a toothpick.

:-) :-) Been doing that since I had hair and teeth...... :-) :-)

I like Valejo paints for figures but have had nothing but bad experiences trying to airbrush with it. What ratio & pressure do you use for general painting & fine detail work?

Regards,

L Witter

I've been using fast food straws to mix paint in the paint cup of my badger 360 for small amounts.. no cleaning reqired I just cut off the used end of the straw and use again till its too short..

I also have been using my dremal to mix the paint.. I cut the stick off of a wooden q-tip.. flatten one end with a hobby knife.. and chuck into place. works great as a paint mixer for bottles also..

Good Idea, Im going to try it

The dropper/pipette is nothing new... but I love this idea:




Very clever. I normally use a match stick to mix the paint and thinning agent, which doesn't always work too well. I think I'll give your "suck & blow" mixing method a go

Thanks

I mix small amounts of paint directly in the AB cup as well. However I mix it by holding my finger over the nozzle and forcing air into the cup as you would when cleaning. Doing it this way insures that all of the paint is mixed. Stirring it will not mix the paint for solvent that is in the fluid passage.

I should mention that I paint with Iwatas. ABs such as Aztec can be damaged by back flushing.

they do give me some trouble, probably because they're not too finely pigmented being not meant for an airbrush (i use the figure paints, not the airbrush ones). they tend to work best with a siphon cup rather than gravity feed. having the paint drip down into the brush results in all the grunk at the bottom clogging up the nozzle. however, if you use the gravity feed, it's not so much of a problem. work either way really. i use 50/50 paint and water with about 30 psi with the larger nozzles for wide coverage or general stuff and 1 drop paint to 2 drops water for misting or 2 to 3 if i want thicker coverage at about 20 psi for detail work using a fine nozzle. i've given up on trying to do very fine detail with it, i use inks for that.