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Hey dakka folks. I thought i'd share my home made airbrush setup.

First off, I had been looking into airbrushing for a while now but could justify buying a full setup for the little I would use it. So I had seen videos on youtube of various homemade systems from fridge unit compressors to the simple foot pump.

I got a cheap airbrush from ebay, it cost about £8 from china, its is a gravity feed dual action and 0.2mm nozzel, then I would use a garden sprayer for compressed air. I just attached it all up and was amazed at the air coming out the gun, it works well all thing considered. It will never win any prizes for best airbrush but it gives me a good insight to mixing paint and cleaning down the gun, plus it has made me realise that I find it hard to spray as I paint in a small room and no ventilation, so outside is better but in UK it is hard to avoid the rain. I always wear a mask and gloves for spraying.

Overall the gun and airbrush do a decent job for the money, sure I have to stop and pump the tank up to keep a good level of pressure but you get a good 20-30 seconds of decent consistant spray, it sprays for ages but after this time the pressure does start to drop, so about 5 pumps and your back the a good level. I can get 40psi tops as it has a safety valve that goes at 40psi, but i never need that level.

I've sprayed GW and vallejo paints through thinned with car washer fluid and they work fine.

Thats my cheap homemade airbrush.

Pretty innovative and it looks like you get pretty good results as well.

It's very innovative, I wouldn't consider it a long term replacement for an oil free compressor.

Add a manometer/ moisture trap and that might make a halfway decent airsource... its certainly more 'green' than other possibilities.



something like this, and then beef up all the seals a bit so it can hold a better pressure maybe silicone sealant.

With the manometer you can limit the air feed to a fixed psi and know when it needs pumping up again.

edit; another upgrade might be to attach a foot pump to the top rather than the hand pump... a more efficient pump that can push more air would take the work out of it a little.

Thanks for the advise, I did think about adding a regulator and moisture trap, but I wanted to see if it would work and what sort a painting I could do. It was just a cheap way of trialling airbrushing for a beginner.

In time I would like decent setup, but maybe a regulator wouldn't go a miss.

I am curious about which airbrush you bought, I would like to try this idea out... mind sharing a link? Thanks!

Well done Leroy - there's using your noggin!

Very impressive.

 leroy233 wrote:


In time I would like decent setup, but maybe a regulator wouldn't go a miss.

With a regulator this might be a fairly good quality air supply for single mini jobs, Its going to depend on how much pressure the tank can hold, how hard it is to pump it up and all that, but it should be remarkably silent, especially compared to anything with a motor. This could be a life saver for anyone who wants to be able to spray things late at night (like me after work - late shift).

Natrually for large batches this is going to be a hard work way of doing things.

I'm really tempted to rig something similar up myself for those times when I just cant fire up the compressor.

For quiet, a bicycle foot pump to fill a metal air tank would work swimmingly. Not to mention that you could just fill it with the compressor during the day. If you have a shop compressor, so much the better. 5 gal or so at 120psi would last quite awhile regulated to 18psi and a fairly low cfm.

ghetto fabulous! I already have all the pieces to this except the airbrush! going to get that and wing it!

Im pretty sure it was this airbrush from ebay.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/0-2mm-Premium-Dual-Action-Airbrush-Painting-Nail-Art-Design-Crafts-Tool-Z081-/400498115680?pt=UK_Health_Beauty_Nails_Manicure_Pedicure_CA&hash=item5d3f8c4460
I only chose this one as it was in the UK and wanted it quick, but there are loads form hong kong that will arrive in about two - four weeks.

I can get about 30 psi easily with about 20-25 pumps of the handle then it starts to get hard when you get towards the 40 psi mark. It is easy to pump and not too distracting to the painting if you have by your feet. Once you do the initial pumps you only need to do it about 5 times every 30 seconds of actual spraying or so depending on how much you pull back on the trigger. The bigger the sprayer the more air you will hold, if you put a regulator on it would get a good steady air supply at low levels such as 20-25 psi for easily a minute between pumping.

I wanted to try it on my wolves as i'd seen some pretty good airbrushing tutorials but me being a cheap skate I couldn't justify spending a lot of money on something I wouldn't use too often. As mentioned I don't think it would be too good for base coating mini's but for detail work and single mini's then it works better than I had imagined. Plus it gets me used to using the airbrush and cleaning it out for if I ever get a decent setup.

Thank you, I'm looking at getting into air brushing aswell, but I'm a broke student. Cheers

ive seen people use a pump to fill up a tire.... then they hook the air hose to the tire valve. i think i saw a tut for it on here too at some point. a decent size tire can last you a solid hr of painting at 18-20psi. its pretty cool since its silent, the air stays cool, and you can do a pretty large amount of painting on 1 tire fill. im still thinking i might try it

In the past I have switched on my larger compressor,early evening, before its unreasonably late to run the thing (99dB )
filled its 24L tank to its max pressure (8bars i think) and then turned it off, unplugged it and brought it inside to use as a back up tank when I was airbrushing a guitar. The tank lasted me approx 60-90 minutes of solid spraying; while freehand airbrushing generally you dont let the air off at all, only for cleaning tip dry or changing colour etc.
I would do this again if that compressor wasnt on loan to a friend spraying a car panel (he's had ti far too long now and needs to be bringing it back! )
Yet still I'm thinking about rigging up something like this with a foot pump and as large a 'tank' as I can find for the late night painting sesions I like to do after work when I literally cant go running either the large compressor or the smaller airbrush only one.
I've seen the tire attachments, but would like to not need to swap the hose between pump and brush to refil, just pump some more like the device youve concocted here.
Point of interest, does the plastic sprayer thing use strong one way valves? it might be improvable if it doesnt lol, the stronger the valve the more presusre it will hold without leaking.

Im not sure about the valve but it hold pressure well. I always empty in of compression after every session as I dont like the put the system under any strain for days on end, just incase. As it only take 20 seconds to fill again its no problem, plus it saves going to the gym.

Any form of compressed air will do the job it just depends on how much air something can hold and at what pressure it will work at. There is a constant flow of air unlike some of the cheap systems without a storage tank.

See. this is the kind of ingenuity that makes it worth keeping abreast of what goes on on dakkadakka. Good stuff.

 poda_t wrote:
See. this is the kind of ingenuity that makes it worth keeping abreast of what goes on on dakkadakka. Good stuff.

Agreed, I was skeptical at first, then I saw the results. Good stuff, man.