68KingFisher

Take everything you know about drawing with a pencil or pen and throw it out the window, cause airbrushing ain't drawing.....hehehe.....But with practice you'll be able to do much better art then you ever could drawing. Besides...practicing airbrushing on something besides lures will force you to learn more about your airbrush and gives you an opportunity to see what its really capable of.....Next thing you know family members are asking you to airbrush teeshirts, ballcaps and license tags for them...lol....this time of year they want airbrushed pumkins too...its all good...just keep at it. Heres a little something I finally finished airbrushing recently while I was practicing up to paint some lures also....

I think its suppose to retard the drying time of whatever color you mix it with.....I've got a bottle, and for the life of me I could never figure out why I would want waterbased paints to have a slower drying time so I,ve never used the stuff....lol.

I'm really new at this so i'm not really the one to comment but, I have used Kilz on a few wooded lures and like you I found that straight outta the can the Kilz is quite thick and didn't work well for dipping, so I thinned it down and sprayed it thru my airbrush and that worked ALOT better for me and I think i'll continue to do it that way.....if I was gonna keep dipping I still think i'd want to thin the Kilz down just to make that process work better.

As far as I know the Eclipse is only available in the 3.5 and the 5mm size.....a smaller 2mm tip won't fit it because they change from those larger cone shaped nozzles to the tiny screw in style.....You can switch between the 3.5 and the 5 by just switching nozzle and needles....the same head assembly is used for both. You'll like the Eclipse....its one of my goto brushes for bike painting. PS....Riverman gave good advice on listening to your airbrush....follow what he said and you'll do ok.

Regardless of namebrand, virtually all professional airbrushers use double action airbrushes all the time...whats that tell you? I don't wanna get into an Paasche vs Iwata debate because I think its a mismatch, but I will say this....Iwata's seem to be easier for new airbrushers to get better results faster then with the Paasche's.....especially when your dealing with waterbase acrylics.....but there is no denying that a Paasche can perform equal to an Iwata in the hands of an experienced user. I also think if your gonna compare airbrushes you need to use the same paint in both at the same time to get a true test....acrylic vs acrylic and lacquer vs lacquer. My vote is that you spend the time learning to use your new gift.....its quite capable of doing anything you want.....with practice.....Learn basic airbrush skills....dont just assume all you do is push the button to spray paint....theres more to double action airbrush control then that.....Practice will help no matter what brand you use....Step up to a different brush when your ready.....or in some cases, "when your sick of this one".

Hahaha....actually optical illusion might not of been the best way to discribe it....I believe it would be more correct to refer to it as a "color shift"....something I personally know little about, but deal with on a regular basis.....the master of dealing with this is Dru Blair Aviation and Star Trek Art by Dru Blair In fact he wrote an article and now teaches classes on what he calls his "Color buffer theory" Dru Blairs Color Buffer Theory He explains why this happens and how to compensate or correct it......its not easy to grasp just from what reading i've done.....I'd love to take Dru's course and see him do what he does in person and maybe that'd help me understand it better. I just deal with it....I use alot of kandy colors in my daily airbrushing, so i'm constantly dealing with "other colors" that get created when you blend one over the next....you kinda learn what blends nicely over what and what turns to mud...lol You might try blending a blue pearl over the yellow and see what difference that makes...the pearls don't act the same as paint....be worth a try if you've got some pearls?

Welcome to the wonderful world of airbrushing.....also known as "Why the heck won't this work"....lol. Actually your just running into something airbrushers deal with alot....its more of an optical illusion kinda thing....chances are your blue or yellow didn't change to green, but it just appears that way....put two colors next to each other and they change the way the other color looks....since your spraying tiny droplets of color that are scattered on top of another color the droplets appear to change color. Usually once you get enough paint coverage the optical effect of the two colors mixing goes away except right at the edge where the two colors meet.....that is assuming your using opague paints?...those are the non-transparent ones....forget everything I just said if your using kandies or transparent paints....they act more like dyes and you can see thru them.

Not much difference other then the location of the paint cup......I use sidefeed detail brushes simply because the paint cup is not in my line of sight when i'm painting tiny details....otherwise both brushes work basicly the same....its just a preference thing. I will say this about a sidebowl....since the paintcup mounts on the side and swivels, you could airbrush on your ceiling like Michelangelo if you wanted too, just by pivoting the paintcup...try that with a gravity feed....lol.

Most airbrushers don't do much more then a couple of backflushes and wipe down their needles as their daily cleaning ritual....only when they have a problem will they break the airbrush completely down, and even then many times its just to pull the nozzle assembly, and not break the airbrush completely down per se....its just not needed in most cases. Now, if you only airbrush once every blue moon, then I can see making sure everything is spotless cause its going to be sitting for awhile and you don't want anything to harden to stone before you use it again......But if your airbrushing regularly, then i'd just backflush till I don't see any paint..wipe needle and your good to go in most cases. Too much cleaning is known for causing air leaks around threaded areas....especially the head assembly, and that'll cause you spitting,sputtering and skipping problems even with water thin paints....an easy check is to take some soapy water and brush some onto all threaded areas of your airbrush and push the trigger for air.....do you see bubbles forming around those treads??....if so you've got an air leak and you need to fix it by one of two ways.....using teflon tape cut into thin strips you can wrap the threads a couple of times but its easy to apply to much, keeping parts from fitting together correctly.....or use what most professional airbrushers use....bee's wax....take a little peice and roll it between your fingers into a tiny snake, and wrap this around the treads...using nothing more than the heat from your fingers just work it into the treads real good and reassemble and do another leak test to make sure you fixed the problem.

My experience with sponges always left me dealing with little pieces of the sponge sticking to the airbrush everytime I turned around....seemed the needle loved to tear off mini chunks....different types of sponges didn't help but natural sea sponges gave me less trouble then the kitchen style.

Ben, i've got one that i've used a few times, but i've never submerged the body of the airbrush...just tips and head assemblies.....the one i've got is actually a $20 unit from the Walmart jewelry dept....I use mineral spirits as my solution...it worked fine....I just don't find that I need it alot....Cleaning is over rated....lol:wink:

I've often wondered about the blanks I see on various website....whether or not they are really anygood and run true, or are they a bunch of seconds and blemished lure bodies that won't work worth a flip once painted? It sure is hard to tell from a tiny picture on a webpage....lol

After several complants from neighbors, a buddy of mine built a small filter system for his backyard paint shop that used a squirrel cage fan exhausting the air out of the shop thru a couple of hvac filters mounted on the inside wall....the air traveled thru a length of not quite horizontally mouted metal ductwork on the outside of his shop before it Tee'd into a vertically mounted piece of ductwork.....the bottom end of that duct sat in a 30gal barrel of water....the top end stuck up above the roof of his shop.....inside the horizontally mounted ductwork he mounted a series of water misting heads.....When he fired up the system the water sprayers inside the ductwork acted as water scrubbers and filtered out the bulk of the paint from the exhausted air....all the paint collected in the bucket of water and he'd change that out periodicly.....You could stand anywhere near his shop and NOT smell any paint fumes coming from it after that.....He used both Createx and automotive urethanes and clearcoats.....The system was kinda crude, but it worked amazingly well for what it was....although it did kinda make his shop look like a moonshine still. Something like this might work for your paint fumes, and maybe even the wood dust....I dunno....Hope i didn't confuse ya with our hillbilly engineering. If nessasary I could draw out what I tried to discribe?

I like your quick release technique for gar.....worked really good Rookie....lol. I did read recently, that the Mammoth Springs lake on the northern edge of Arkansas was stocked with Northern pike, and Tiger Musky!!!!!......Who knew?.....Guess a redneck or hillbilly could catch a Musky here in the south...hahaha.

Happy to help....glad it all worked out....be sure to show us your paintjobs.

Mmmmmmmmm.....Garlic.....I love to cook with the stuff and I have some planted next to the house.....I can't get enough....lol...Onions, and peppers either....just love'm.

different grades of polishing compound....the same stuff you might use to polish out a new finish on a car or motorcycle....most mild compounds from your auto finish care section would work ok....i've even heard of guys using toothpaste. I go against alot of the guys in that I clamp my needles in my drill and spin them during polishing....alot of airbrushers preach against that, but its always worked for me.

I was just doing the same thing....thats crazy looking, but as Dave said a great photo op....hope ya come thru it all ok Pete....i've got a buddy that lives in QLD that I should check on.....hope this doesn't create too many problems for ya.....I wish I could send you some of the rain weve been getting....we are something like 25" over for the year so far....everythings a mud hole around here and your area is dryin up and blowin away....crazy world we live in huh?

I've never seen any signs of rust in any of my airbrushes due to cleaning with water in over 30yrs of airbrushing, and i've run alot of water and waterbased paints thru them, so i'd say its safe to use all the water you want. Thats all I ever use for clean up when using acrylics...alot of guys like to add something extra, from made for airbrush cleaners, to windex, alcohol, Simple green, Fantastic, etc...I could never tell that it made much difference in clean up time.....I use a little squeeze bottle that has a long snout with a tiny tip on it that I keep filled with water....I aim the tip into my paint cup and squeeze....the harder I squeeze the bottle the more pressure I get from the water, which really cleans the paint off the sides of the cup quickly. Normally, once the paint cup is clear of excess paint i'll add water to the cup and then boil it a couple of times....What I mean by "boiling or backflushing" is where i'll take a soft rag or paper towel thats folded into a pad and i'll start spraying the water thru the airbrush at full trigger pull...then i'll gently push the tip of the airbrush into the folded towel....this will make the air blow back into the paint cup....WARNING:...(Its at this point you can easily splatter all the water and paint in the cup all over you and everything near you, if your not careful).....you'll get a feel of how to do this better once you've done it a few times...then you'll be able to tap the pad against the tip of the airbrush on and off several times which causes a pumping style of boiling action within the cup, but more importantly within the body of the airbrush...this technique really does a good job of clearing any leftover paint quickly...you'll see the water in the cup turn from clear into whatever color paint you used last....dump the water and repeat the process till the water stays clear....pull the needle, and wipe it down and I'll do another quick boil just to make sure no color is left inside.....especially when i'm changing paint colors and I dont want to contaminate the next color, but also when i'm done for the day and I don't want paint to dry inside the body...After you get the hang of doing this, you can get pretty quick at color changes....takes just a few seconds really.....Just for the record, I seldom ever break down any of my airbrushs for cleaning unless i'm having some type of problem with them.

I think its because your only moving the trigger and needle a tiny amount, and since the paint has to squeeze thru that small opening it begins to build and dry against anything it can get a grip on...like a rough spot...or damaged metal....it continues to build until you pull the needle back enough that it spits itself out....where as, if your shooting alot more paint and moving the needle back alot further, you've got a much bigger opening which allows a larger volume of paint thru the opening so it doesn't get the chance to build up and dry out as easy.....at least thats my theory and i'm stickin to it....lol I know I have alot more spitting issues when i'm painting the extra fine details....I find it helps to either have new parts in my brush, and in some cases I'll do extra polishing on the needle...the way I see it, it's less area of rough metal for paint to grab onto....look at a factory needle under magnification and you'll see how rough the surface of the metal really is on most needles....A good polishing really makes a difference.

When I look at the splatters vs the finely atomized paint in the letters you painted it doesn't really look like thick paint issues....i'd come closer to saying that its the damaged tip and needle causing your problem. Follow along with me.....a round needle sealing against the inside a round nozzle...VS....a slightly bent needle thats trying to seal against the inside of what used to be a round nozzle but has now been massaged by some bodyshop expert....chances are good that tip is damaged which allows more air to pass thru that spot that doesn't seal well....so the paint in that spot begins to dries out and collect there.....then as you move the trigger and pull the needle back which allows that tiny spot of dried paint to spit out.....the little high pitched whistles and noises are also indicative of clogging paint at the tip...plus in your case its also most likely tip damage makin some of the whistling noises. Look at the nozzle under magnification if you can.....I have an old 12x printers loop that I use, but even a magnafiying glass you might have in your desk drawer could allow you to get a better idea of what the tip really looks like....to get good results you need good metal to metal contact around the needle...or you'll get leaks and spitting....period....if those items are good then your paint is too thick.

Just trigger control boys....just trigger control....lol....i've seen some of the topgun airbrushers freehand 100 skulls in the space of a quarter with a detail brush....I can't get that much detail and I live with an airbrush in my hands....but take a detail airbrush thats working correctly, combined with properly thinned paints and throw in some quality trigger control and you can achieve amazing results.....the only machine involved would be the compressor. I know this is a bit off topic for a tackle making site, but take a few minutes one day and check out this guy if your not already famlier with him.. Alberto Ponno - Airbrush Car Painter In my opinion Alberto is one of the few and true masters of the airbrush, not to mention he's probably my favorite motorsports artist and i'm really into motorsports art. Keep in mind as you look at his paintings that they are done 100% "Freehand"....meaning NO masking is used...not even a straight edge....all he uses is a projector and a Paasche VJR....now look at the sizes of the paintings....you'll be amazed at what a true airbrush master can do with that little tool we all seem to struggle with.

It could be from the deformed nozzle....but it could just as likely be from too thick of paint....try thinning some down and see if that changes anything.

Well, maybe ya lucked out....needles can be straightened(for the most part), but my experiences with massaging a bent tip....especially those really tiny screw in kind....never worked really well for me, and i'd just end up gettin new parts...but, for something like doin lures you might find it works ok....your usually not worried about tight "freehand" details so a tweaked tip may not hurt ya much....do like you said, try it out and see....go from there.

Thats when something like a Soda blaster would come in handy.....I've looked a few of my baits that had a heavy relief pattern cut into the sides and wondered how i'd prep them....let us know what you end up doing.