Air Compressors, everybody with one come here and help me out plz!

Hey,

Right now, im doing mostly dry brushing on everything but the chassis and body of my model cars, i have been using tamiya rattle cans to take care of the body/hood/chassis parts, but brushing the rest, I have a cheap testors airbrush, and would use it but cannot afford to pay 15 bucks for a large bottle of brush propellant (im a 16 y/o paper boy, i only make 15 bucks every 2 weeks for petes sake!) right now im saving up to hopefully purchase an air compressor and possibly a badger dual action brush i found at a local hobby shop.

Now, heres the question, my friends dad has a garage full of air propelled tools (ie. impact wrench, nail gun etc..) he has a fairly large compresor to power these tools... now my question is, can i use a smaller compressor much like this,( but a much much smaller version,...much smaller) could i use this tiny "non-hobby" compressor to power my airbrush, as well as use it to pump up bicycle tires etc..??? this would seem like a more logical thing to do instead of spend the same ammount of money on a airbrush only compressor. i would much rather buy a compressor that i can use for more than one thing then spend this much and it will only have 1 purpose... any help?

To my knowledge, most of the smaller, quieter hobby compressors don't give out as much pressure (I think they usually peak around 30PSI). This could be a problem for running air tools and pumps etc.

If you do want to run other things off your compressor, definatly get one of the bigger ones, but be warned, they can make quite a bit of noise as they refil themselves. They should run an airbrush comfortably if you run them at a lower PSI though. But make sure when you buy it, you check to see if it'll do everything you want it to do, that's the most important thing.

I was in sorta the same situation as you-my Grandpa has a compresser, but it was impractical to have to borrow it everytime I wanted to airbrush something. I went to Wal Mart, and got a 7 gallon air tank for $20.00. I bought the various airbrush accesories (hose, regulator, moisture trap, etc>) and hooked it up to the air tank. When I run out of air, I can simply drive over to my Grandpa'a, and refill it.
HTH Chuck

I bought a compressor at Walmart for $100. Its small and comes with a 2 gallon tank, but its loud. Even though its supposed to be "quieter, than the rest." I would have bought the hobby compressor. You can still fill up bike tires with a hobby one... im sure they dont take more than 30 PSI :smile:

yeah if you are broke you might just want to buy a 7-10 gallon air tank and take it to your friends or a gas station and refill when you need to. this would cost $20-40. plus you need to get a regulator and water trap. then you can buy a compressor later and by then you might now what you need out of your compressor. i have a 1/10 HP Paasche hobby compressor but i also have an air tank that i fill up with compressor if i want to do some late night painting. so it wouldnt be a waste to save money and buy an air tank cus you can still use it later on in life when you get a compressor. on your budget it might be your best bet. $15 every 2 weeks???? crap you could beg on the street and make more then that. how do you buy models? :iceslolan

well thanks for your reply's im going to a "city" i live in a town of... a couple thousand... we dont have hobby shops, and im gonna goto walmart and home depot and the hobby shops to check out the compressors. yea... 15 bucks every 2 weeks... it blows... it really does, i'v tried getting many jobs, but no luck, so a paper route supplies me with my cash, how do i buy models... a lot of saving is involved in that... seeing as how the cheapest tamiya kit i have found was $29.50... thats a couple weeks pay for me right there, and i dont get cash from my parents really... so yea... i save alot.

O and about how long does the 7-10 gallon tank of air last? would i be able to airbrush the whole kit ? maybe more?

Yep Home Depot is a good bet for what you're looking for. You can use any "non-hobby" compressors for your airbrush once you get the 1/4" NPT adapter to hook into an airbrush line. You should be able to find that anywhere that sells airbrushes. A regulator that lets you adjust as low as 15psi and a moisture trape is required. A simple $100 - $150 compressor will do the airbrush as well as inflate tires.

A $100+ airbrush-only compressor does nothing else for you but blow dust off the shelves and scare your cat. Quite useless unless you live in an apartment or something where you can't have a noisy, large roll-around unit.