68KingFisher

The popsicle splatter technique I mentioned is as simple as it sounds....you take a popsicle stick and hold just in front of your airbrush tip and start spraying paint onto the stick.....as the paint builds up it begins to blow off the end of the stick and creates a splatter design onto whatever your painting....with a bit of practice you can adjust the splatters to suit your likes....from a tiny pattern to much larger droplets....Once you try this you'll see what I mean. I appreciate the kudos Mark.....I really want to help you guys with your airbrush struggles without coming across as a "know it all". I remember what it was like when I started airbrushing and had no outside help...it was more than frustrating to say the least....if I can help you guys avoid some of that I want too.....Keep asking the questions, I don't mind sharing what I know.

I believe its known as a "crown cap"....maybe because it would resemble a crown if you unscrewed it and held it upright.....lol...I dunno. From what I understand its purpose is two fold.....first it allows air to escape to the sides when doing detail work which allows you to get closer to the surface of whatever it is your painting but still have protection for the needle....For really close detail work you'll usually remove the crown cap all together which allows you to get better detail, but leaves the tip of the needle exposed to damage.....Second purpose, is basicly what Pete said...cuts down on the paint drying in that area. For splatters I always use the old popcicle stick application method.

Correct.

I'm pretty new at the whole lure building thing, but from what I could tell when I first looked into this hobby was, you could get into it as deep as you wanted. From just whittling a topwater chugger from a stick that fell outta the tree in your backyard to going full bore and acquiring all the wood working tools needed to go into production almost, or anywhere in between....I think its up to you how deep you wanna get. Do it for the fun of making your own lure, and just go with it and see.

The Eclipse is a great airbrush....grab ya a hose and get you playin with it....you'll like it.....Snag ya a bottle of glycerin at the drugstore and use it as airbrush lube....you'll probably have to get o-rings from an online airbrush store....Try Coast, Dixie or BearAir.

I wish I could help by offering a side by side comparison, but I don't have access to the PS900....I will say this.....cheap knockoffs are just that....cheap knockoffs....don't expect them to perform as good as the quality namebrands.....Sure they'll work fine for awhile, but its usually not long before your having problems....For the money, your always better off going with quality name brands if you want it to last.....Just like any tool....A high dollar tool works better and lasts longer then the cheapo dollar store tools...lol:yay: Give me one top of the line airbrush over a dozen cheap knockoffs anyday.

Ben, as long as you remove the tip from your airbrush before you soak it you'll be fine....I usually soak mine in lacquer thinner for a few minutes after i've been using Createx....the thinner really loosens acrylic and won't hurt the tip(nozzle).

The Eclipse and the VL, have different airvalve and trigger assemblies.....While i've had some sticky airvalves at times in my Iwata, I can honestly say i've had no more trouble from it then my Paasche. I doubt that you'll find o-rings at HobbyLobby but ya might as well check.

You say that like marrage is a bad thing?.....lol.....It, like anything takes some time to get the hang of.....learning to airbrush is no different, and much more forgiving then a wife...lol.

What your discribing is less likely to be a paint problem and more likely to be operator error.....sorry.....But i'll lay odds that your making a rookie airbrushing mistake of letting off the trigger without moving the needle forward to stop the flow of paint first.....what happens is that a drop of paint gathers around the needle and is pushed forward when the trigger springs forward after you've released it....since you stopped airflow first the paint isn't blown away, but hangs on the tip....the next time you hit the trigger for air, you get a blast of paint splatter you didn't want or expect. A simple training exercise will help you overcome the releasing the trigger problem....You want to learn whats called the "Dagger stroke"....its a simple stroke of the airbrush where you draw a line across a piece of paper or some other flat substrate, and you want the line to start and stop with a tappered point....if your line just stops and doesn't taper off then your releasing your trigger before closing the needle....which is usually followed by a splatter at the beginning of the next spray.....once you get to where you can draw consistant lines that taper off to a point then your operating the airbrush correctly.....push down for air...pull back for paint....push forward to stop the paint flow....let off trigger to stop airflow......Sounds simple but its not to a beginner....its just takes some repetative practice....once that dagger stroke becomes second nature to you, you'll have a ton of airbrush control and all your work will improve. You guys could probably benefit from some of the airbrush techniques that are taught to new airbrushers that want to learn to paint tee shirts and other items where they want to add artwork and not just do fades.....the practice techniques of dots, daggers, circles, and S's will help anyone become better with controlling their airbrush....even if you just use them to paint fades with.

I've been airbrushing along time and i've never once had an issue with oil getting into the airbrush....Other then the occasional maintanance of changing or adding oil, they are quieter and more reliable over the long haul then oil-less units....Don't let the oil keep you from purchasing a compressor...thats actually a plus in my book...lol

If it was mine, i'd run some mild solvent thru the airvalve itself to see if you can get it to free up....you can also run a little airtool oil thru them will help....just follow that up with some type of mild solvent(mineral spirits for example) to wash out the oil once its all free again...you don't want oil in your paint...especially if your using uro's.....Once freed up, i'd also lube the trigger pivot points and sides of the trigger where they rub the airbrush body with an airbrush lube...you could subsitute a drop of glycerin from your local drug store....you don't need much....you just want a film of lubricant on the parts that touch metal to metal...also make sure that little part that hangs off the trigger doesn't have a burr on it and that the pivot moves freely. If your problem is in the airvalve assembly and flushing it out and lubing it didn't help, you might have O-ring problems inside....I believe you can order replacements....I've never had to do this yet....cleaning always fixed mine.....Hollar at me if you can't get it figured out, and i'll try and help more.

Happy belated birthday Pete......Hope ya have many more.....keep crankin out the cool tackle mate.

Paasche air hoses will not fit an Iwata.....for whatever reason there is no industry standard in that area so you'll need to plan on getting an air hose to fit the Iwatas. Most hoses are brand specific....but Iwata hoses usually fit Iwata knockoffs....lol. There are pro's and con's to each style....Siphon feed vs gravity feed that is.....Get what fits your needs best....I purchased bottle feed when I was airbrushing tee shirts so I could swap colors quickly and the bottles held more paint....I like my gravity feeds because they use less air pressure making detail work easier, but I don't like the paint cup in my line of sight, so its a catch 22 for me....lol. Either will work for lure painting, but i'll bet most guys use gravity feed, since on average most have small compressors and being able to work with less air pressure is valued highly. Having a spare needle and tip on hand is always a good thing. I hadn't heard anything new between BearAir and Iwata, but your 100% correct....they once again show Iwata's on their website...thats great...I hope they worked everything out.....I missed having them as a dealer for parts....thanks for the info.

BearAir was forced to drop their Iwata dealership recently, but they carry aftermarket parts. Their Peak airbrushes are very simular to the Iwata's and work just about as good if your interested in those......otherwise Iwata parts are readily available thru other venues.....I use an Iwata Eclipse for about 80% of my airbrushing and they are a great airbrush. They have the same amount of parts as any other make of airbrush so cleaning isn't really much different then cleaning any other brand.....all airbrushes are about the same in that area. Practice is the key to using any model airbrush.....practice on any substrate you can get access to....paper, cardboard, aluminum, pvc pipe, tee shirts, papertowels, ballcaps etc....lol.....you don't have to just restrict your practice to a lure body.

Yep, its my artwork....did this for a restaurant my wife and daughter work for...did a total of nine murals for them.....heres a closer view of the characters on this one.

I still use Penetrol when pinstriping with OneShot sign enamels.....its good stuff. I can't say how the Flowtrol will act when hit with a hair dryer cause i've never done that.....I will say that I used alot of the stuff when I airbrushed a series of wall murals in a Mexican restaurant where my wife and daughter work. The largest mural was just over 21ft long by 6ft high.....I used a variety of waterbased acrylic paints for this project....from Createx, Aquaflow, Createx AutoAir, as well as some regular old latex wall paint....heck I even used some of the cheap acrylic paints found in the craft section of Walmart.....I sprayed everything thru my bottle fed Iwata Eclipse. When a peticular paint was too thick or gave me troubles flowing i'd reduce the paint with a 75/25 mixture of water/windshield washer fluid and Flowtrol...the amount of Flowtrol varied from paint to paint....its thicker then you'd expect and can even help add viscosity to a paint thats already too thin. The washer fluid has some kinda glycol product in it that also helps with flow and tip dry problems....some guys also use Fantastic cleaning solution or straight glycerin in their reducer mix.....Keep in mind that I was using these products on prepainted drywall and rolled on a clearcoat when I was done.....i'd be reluctant to use these homebrewed additives if I were going to apply a urethane clearcoat over the top....and I haven't a clue what it may or may not do under an epoxy finish....you'd just have to run a few tests to see if it caused any adhesion problems with D2T or DN....I have my doubts that it would, but I can't say for sure since I don't use them. Will it thin enough to need additional coats?......I think that would depend on how much your using, but yeah you can thin it down quite a bit and still keep it workable....I took a thick brown flat latex house paint and thinned it to the point that I could work in light layers and slowly build my artwork,but the paint was not so thin that I experienced any wet blowouts or problems with waiting for paint to dry....I spent almost a month on this project painting murals all day everyday, and the Flowtrol really pulled me outta the woods when a cheapo latex paint didn't want to spray very well thru my airbrush.....but painting wall murals ain't paintin lures, so I dunno....A bottle of it won't break the bank, and you might find a use for it....even if you just need to paint the house...lol. Pete, I would never bash anything you had to say......so speak up buddy.....Hearing about the glue doesn't surprise me a bit.....I've seen more then one airbrusher use Elmers white glue as an airbrush medium.....lots of old stories about that floating around airbrush forums...lol:lol: I've also seen house painters pee into 5gal paint cans to keep the paint from freezing in the winter...they swore it made the paint flow better....But, i'll be darned if i'm gonna start mixin urine with my airbrush paints to get them to flow:oooh:

Yeah man, I needed to practice on something....lol....I'm sure glad that guy let me use his Harley.

I haven't used it yet....All i've used on lures so far has been Dupont clear and it worked fine....its what I used on my avatar lure.

Spoopa is right....."YES", pull your needle and wipe it down everytime you clean....and I also pull my needle and wipe it when doing color changes most of the time....it depends on what color i'm using and what color i'm fixin to use....I might just let the new color overpower whats left in the airbrush....this works mostly when switching from a light color to a dark color, or colors on the same side of the color wheel....like switching from yellow to orange I wouldn't worry about much cleaning if any....but if I was going from purple to yellow then I'd clean it alot better cause I wouldnt' want the purple turning my yellow into mud....unless thats the effect I was goin for.....You get the idea.

Everything from primer thru clearcoat was House of Kolor paints.

:DThanks Dean....I just sprayed cola out my nose all over my keyboard.

Water will act a thinner for waterbased acrylic paints, but it doesn't really help as a flow enhancer....for that you normally need an additive that will break down the surface tension of the water....for the lack of a better explaination I have often referred to those additives as "Making water wetter"....That will help with flow without over thinning with too much water which is easy to do.....I use a product called Flotrol which can be purchased at places like Ace hardware in their paint dept....its a flow additive thats intended to be used on acrylic house paint to help the paint flow out better so your brush marks will dissapear.

Chances are the only acrylic airbrush paint you'll find at a craft store would be Createx.....most of the other brands of acrylic paints they'll carry will not be made to spray thru your airbrush and while they may work for you, chances are good you'll have problems using them since their pigments aren't ground as fine as in paint made for airbrush use. In addition to the list of paints DSV posted, there are a few other brands of acrylic airbrush paints available....Etac, AquaFlow, Golden, Comart, and Tamiya just to name a few more.....Also Createx manufactures their standard "Createx" acrylic, as well as Createx AutoAir and their new AutoAir Autoborne colors, and more recently Createx Wicked colors which they claim is a professional grade airbrush paint.....All these are good quality airbrush paints and have a wide variety of colors to choose from...even pearls and metalics.