Any Air Brush Tips for a Aeorsol Chump

I have always painted my models using aerosol cans and decided to buy a beginners air brush kit on recommendation from my local model supplies shop. It's a Badger 250 I think. Had a quick go at some spraying today by adding a second coat with Tamiya acrylic X2 (Thinned 50/50 with Tamiya thinner) to a car body that had a first light coat of Tamiya TS7 aerosol paint. After several coats, each one I washed off before they dried, I gave up for fear of doing some irreparable damage.

Can anyone confirm if Tamiya areosol paint is compatible with their acrylics, as I thought they were one and the same.

The finish I was getting wasn't bad but I can get a much improved result with an aerosol. I know I probably need many hours practice but does anyone out there have any handy airbrush tips that they can point me to.

Many thanks

What do you mean by 'washed off'? Acrylic paint should go over just about anything, but lacquer will probably not like going over top of acrylic.

Was the base coat completely cured and clean before you started the acrylic? You may be thinning that too much, or using the wrong pressure.

Acrylic goes over everything:

Refer here:
http://tamiya.com/english/scale/beginner2/2.htm

As for the problem, I don't fully understand your problem. I just hope you didn't pay to much for your badger 250. That kind of airbrush (if we can call that airbrush) are selling for 15$ on ebay. Most of the time, hobby shop make big money on that kind of stuff. You will have better result with Tamiya spray can.

I'm not a big lover of the Tamiya acrylics gloss colours for painting a bodyshell and usually stick to the TS range of aerosols,which I find give a lot better coverage and finish on a large bodyshell.They also dry faster as well and are a lot easier to polish being more durable.I only use the Acrylics for all the other bits of the model,seats,dashboard,wings and wipers etc and I find they spray really well with the airbrush for this purpose.It's just my opinion but I would stick to the aerosols for the main painting of the body.I'm not saying that you can't get a very good finish with the airbrush on a body because I've seen some models on here painted with the airbrush and the finishes have been amazing it's just that I prefer the aerosols.Steve.

Tamiya acrylics and aerosol laquers are very different beasts. Acrylic is a safe, easy paint to use, and you can certainly use it over laquers. Just let the laquers fully cure (dry) first.

For anyone first starting out in modeling, it's always easier to get good results with spray cans when painting bodies. Airbrushing undeniably takes more skill- there's more to learn than 'shake can, press trigger'. But the control possible with airbrushes far exceeds that of spray cans. You just have to learn to use it. As with everything else in this hobby (and many others), it's worth the investment in time to learn how to do it.

You will see a lot of BS on this board about this or that airbrush being superior to others. In the hands of a competent modeler, the airbrush itself really doesn't make that much difference. The Badger 250 is certainly an entry model, and it is limited by the fact that it is a single action instead of a dual action. I believe it also doesn't offer the option of using a color cup, which is my prefered way of feeding paint. But you can definately use it to create paint jobs as good as anything else you see on this board, be it spray can painted or airbrushed.

The best advice i can give is just take the time to learn to use it. Get a large piece of cardboard, and test spray like crazy on it. Learn what you can do. Get a good respirator at your local hardware store and use it.

This is my usual disertation on using Tamiya acrylics- I airbrush them all the time, even on bodies, and get terrific results:

I use them all- Tamiya, Gunze, and MM Acryl. For thinning, I use a mixture of 25ish% isopropyl alcohol, and 75ish% distilled water (or tap water, when I'm lazy). Mix this ratio by your preference. More alcohol, and the paint will dry faster, more water and it will dry slower. Too fast (most or all alcohol), and the finish may be grainy, as the paint will partially dry in the spray stream. Too slow, and its of course more likely to puddle- but, I've used anywhere from 1:3 to 1:6 alcohol:water and had good results- so this ratio isn't too critical. I keep this ina small plastic dropper bottle- I pour a bit of paint into the airbrush paint cup, and put a few drops of thinning solution in, test spray, and adjust, if necessary.

For cleanup, I use windex glass cleaner- don't use the cheap generic stuff, it doesn't have enough ammonia in it to be effective. Just put it into the paint cup, and spray and backpressure until it runs clear. Windex works very well as a stripper for Tamiya and Gunze acrylics (so be careful using it around painted objects!), and it's terrific for cleaning the airbrush. Windex won't dissolve dried Acryl, but it works great for cleanup after spraying. If you leave it to dry, Testor's MM Acryl cleaner will certainly do the trick. It comes in another small plastic dropper bottle, just like I use for thinning solution and windex.

Before painting a car body, or anything else that I'm super paranoid about paint contamination on, I take the airbrush apart and clean the tip, needle, paint cup and siphon with a bit of laquer cleaner, with qtips and pipe cleaner. Laquer thinner will clean just about anything that may be dried in your airbrush.

Your right that gloss acrylics do take a while to dry until they're ready to polish, but I've never had a paint job with acrylic that wan't ready to polish in about a week. I've had enamel finishes take up to six weeks to cure. Frequently when I polish, I find that I can spray a couple of thin coats of Tamiya clear (X22 I think), polish it after two days, spray some more, wait two days and polish some more(repeat as necessary). I find that it's very forgiving, and a little bit of patience will yield a blinding P-man shine. :thumbsup:

Give it a try!
so I guess you dont use the model master acrylic thinner or the tamiya thinner for spraying????
Nah, I don't bother with them. No reason not to, really, but I've been happy with just water & isopropyl. I guess I've heard a rumor that there's an additive in the Tamiya thinner that makes their gloss acrylics work better somehow, but I haven't found much difference. If you try them, let me know!


So, play with it. Relax, learn and enjoy.

Good luck!

What do you mean by 'washed off'? Acrylic paint should go over just about anything, but lacquer will probably not like going over top of acrylic.

Was the base coat completely cured and clean before you started the acrylic? You may be thinning that too much, or using the wrong pressure.

Sorry, didn't explain fully, it was me who washed the paint off before it dried knowing that it didn't quite look right. Base coat has been dry about a week. More practice I think.

Acrylic goes over everything:

Refer here:
http://tamiya.com/english/scale/beginner2/2.htm

As for the problem, I don't fully understand your problem. I just hope you didn't pay to much for your badger 250. That kind of airbrush (if we can call that airbrush) are selling for 15$ on ebay. Most of the time, hobby shop make big money on that kind of stuff. You will have better result with Tamiya spray can.

Model shop didn't have the Tamiya aerosol I needed which cost £4.99 and the air brush was £12 plus a can of air. So thought why not give it a go before jumping in and buying a better air brush. I think the aerosol may still be on to get this job done but I don't intend to give up on the air brush just yet and will practice on some of the less obvious parts.

Tamiya acrylics and aerosol laquers are very different beasts. Acrylic is a safe, easy paint to use, and you can certainly use it over laquers. Just let the laquers fully cure (dry) first.

For anyone first starting out in modeling, it's always easier to get good results with spray cans when painting bodies. Airbrushing undeniably takes more skill- there's more to learn than 'shake can, press trigger'. But the control possible with airbrushes far exceeds that of spray cans. You just have to learn to use it. As with everything else in this hobby (and many others), it's worth the investment in time to learn how to do it.

You will see a lot of BS on this board about this or that airbrush being superior to others. In the hands of a competent modeler, the airbrush itself really doesn't make that much difference. The Badger 250 is certainly an entry model, and it is limited by the fact that it is a single action instead of a dual action. I believe it also doesn't offer the option of using a color cup, which is my prefered way of feeding paint. But you can definately use it to create paint jobs as good as anything else you see on this board, be it spray can painted or airbrushed.

The best advice i can give is just take the time to learn to use it. Get a large piece of cardboard, and test spray like crazy on it. Learn what you can do. Get a good respirator at your local hardware store and use it.

This is my usual disertation on using Tamiya acrylics- I airbrush them all the time, even on bodies, and get terrific results:





So, play with it. Relax, learn and enjoy.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, well worth asking the question on here.

I agree with your thoughts totally, more practice required. I think I will finish this particular body with an aerosol and then try the air brush on some fresh parts and take it from there. I don't expect the air brush I have bought to be top spec but it was a case of making the jump cheaply from aerosols and if I can get into it then maybe I'll treat myself to a more upmarket piece of kit at a later date.

Cheers :)

Tamiya's acrylics should not be thin 1:1. I got good results thinning 5 parts of paint with 1 part of tamiya's thinner.

I just started using my airbrush one month ago and the best advice I can give you when you use tamiya's paint is to spray very light coat, very the paint runs off very easily.

And I don't recommend following any special formula for thinning paint, as no two bottles of paint require the same amount of thinning, no matter what anyone tells you.
Experience will teach you how much to thin the paint to get the correct consitency, just add a little thinner at a time until you get the consistency required and off you go!

Model shop didn't have the Tamiya aerosol I needed which cost £4.99 and the air brush was £12 plus a can of air. So thought why not give it a go before jumping in and buying a better air brush. I think the aerosol may still be on to get this job done but I don't intend to give up on the air brush just yet and will practice on some of the less obvious parts.


Well for that price, I guess it's fine for testing (I spend more money than that on my first "airbrush", so I got screwed even more than you :D) But overall, you will see that can of air with paint cost the same, if not more than the tamiya spray can. So you don't save, don't get better result, no real advantage there. But, it can be good for painting interiors and other parts.

Another problem youve got is that you are using an aero can for air supply. they are not regulated and generally spray to much PSI when new and not enough PSI when they start running out. you really want to get a compressor with a regulator if you want good results with your airbrush.

Tamiya's acrylics should not be thin 1:1. I got good results thinning 5 parts of paint with 1 part of tamiya's thinner.

I just started using my airbrush one month ago and the best advice I can give you when you use tamiya's paint is to spray very light coat, very the paint runs off very easily.

And I don't recommend following any special formula for thinning paint, as no two bottles of paint require the same amount of thinning, no matter what anyone tells you.
Experience will teach you how much to thin the paint to get the correct consitency, just add a little thinner at a time until you get the consistency required and off you go!

Thanks for those bits of mixing information. I thought the paint looked a little too thinned down when I was mixing it.

Another problem youve got is that you are using an aero can for air supply. they are not regulated and generally spray to much PSI when new and not enough PSI when they start running out. you really want to get a compressor with a regulator if you want good results with your airbrush.

I thought the pressure was a bit high when I first started using this air brush. Looks like I should have just stuck to good old aerosols, but I'll stick at it for now and see if I can get to grips with air brushing before shelling out any more money on a compressor. Out of curiosity how much should I be looking to pay for a basic compressor.

you can find them for as cheap as $50 on sale at auto parts store. plus you can fill your car tires and other things with it. so not a complete waste if you decide airbrushing isnt for you.