newbie questions regarding airbrush

[chris_r19]

Me being a newbie I just want to introduce myself shortly. I've just come across this board a week ago and after seeing all these great model galleries, FAQs, discussions here I decided to join.

I have been building models since my childhood, mostly military aircraft (jets and helicopters). I also have Costeau's "Calypso" in my collection, but I've only built three car models so far.
The first has been a Revell BMW 325i (E36), which I got at the age of 11 or 12. It was meant nice but doesn't look very nice anymore, I am thinking of ripping it apart and doing it over again.
About two years back I did the Tamiya Jeep Wrangler and a Revell top fuel dragster.

After having not much time for modelling for some time my current projects are a Revell Dodge Viper GTS and a '99 CART Champcar Reynard (Team Rahal).


So far for this, now to my questions:

I've got a double action airbrush pistol but so far I've used it very reluctantly because of the cleaning mess afterwards and the paint mixture process. The gun has only a small "cup" for the paint (7cc I believe). How much colour do you usually need when spraying a complete car body (several layers)? Also is there an easy way to mix the colours and get them into the gun's "cup" (sorry don't know the word)?

Can you mix normal enamel paint and this Revell airbrush colour, if so how?


Last but not least two things that I noticed here. Some of you seem to put the kits together and paint them completely afterwards? How do you do this? I usually put belonging parts together (i.e. the engine) and then start to paint it but my guess is if everything would be together there are so many places that you wouldn't reach with colour yet they would be visible. Plus the masking necessary would be a nightmare.

On another note I just came across a shop today that actually had Tamiya kits (over here you mostly have Revell), they seemed a bit pricey to me at 30 Euros. What would the "normal" price be?

thanks for any advice in advance
Christian

[kicker1_solo]

Originally posted by chris_r19
How much colour do you usually need when spraying a complete car body (several layers)?

Some of you seem to put the kits together and paint them completely afterwards? How do you do this?

Welcome to AF

and I don't know all of your questions, just the two that I left above.
For the amount of coats, I usually do 3-5 coats.

And about painting after putting the kit together. Most people don't actually put it all the way together, you'll see how it looks all the way together, but it's usually not glued. They just set the body on there to show how it will look and stuff like that. Then they just take the body off and spray it. I'm sure that there are a few that might paint it after putting it together, but the rest of us don't have the patience to mask that much.

[daggerlee]

The paint required to spray a body will vary from body to body, color to color. From experience, I use about 1/3 of a 23 mL Tamiya acrylic bottle when spraying an acrylic, which is about 7 mL, not including thinner. An easy workaround to a small gravity cup size (yes it is called a cup) would be to premix your color in a jar, and use it as necessary. You'll need a pipette or syringe or eyedropper to transfer paint to the cup.

I use Tamiya acrylics because they are soluble in water, hence they are easy to clean up. No need to mess with nasty enamel thinners or mineral thinners. The strongest stuff you'll use in cleaning acrylics is isopropyl alcohol or an ammonia-based cleaning solution (such as Windex for windows).

Tamiya kits cost about 1500-1800 yen in Japan, which is around 14-17 American dollars. I think the American/Euro exchange rate is nearly equal. But, it also costs money to ship from Japan, and the keeper needs to take a profit, so that seems pretty reasonable and about the same price you would find them here in the United States. If you want to order directly from the source, go to www.hlj.com or www.1999.co.jp (click on english). Probably the cost comes out slightly less when you order straight from Japan.

[chris_r19]

thanks so far, will see if I can get my hands on Tamiya paint somewhere. also where do you get this fine sand paper? finest I was able to get was 600 grit.


Christian