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Good day folks.

I have been scowering these forums for the past couple of days trying to find an answer for this question but no luck. So I figured I might as well come out and ask.

I recently acquired a Harder & Steenbeck Evolution airbrush and I am getting eager to causing some trouble. I already have a compressor (I believe the manufacturer is Jobmate?) which seems to have a regulator. My question is, what else do I need? According to the manual I need a 2.7 NW quick connector, but googling that just brings up a wide selection of these connectors, would they all suite my purpose?

Furthermore the compressor does have a hose, but it is a coiled plastic hose. Do I need one of those fancy braided ones? Does size matter?

I am eager to jump in, but man is this daunting! Any help at all would be great! Thanks!

Make sure your regular has a water trap and pick up a fitting. I'd go for a quick release fitting direct from H&S personally that way you can take the brush off without ditching the pressure in the tank or fussing with the regulator. Otherwise.... go for it and don't worry about it so much. Oh... and buy some air brush medium (liquitex or vallejo). You'll thank yourself.

You'll want plenty of stuff around to clean the brush. Always clean your brush immediately after you're done using it. If you let the paint harden in the nozzle or inside the brush it could ruin it.

I use a combination of windex (the real stuff with ammonia) to run through the brush and rubbing alchohal for the needle/nozzle. Vallejo and other companies sell Airbrush cleaner, some of which have lubricants in the cleaner. If you want to go crazy you could go for some of that, but I like the cheap stuff. Windex is also a decent/cheap medium to thin your paint with. But you'll want to paint outside or a heavily ventilated area with a mask because vaporized windex can make you sick.

I also like dentex denture cleaners, they look like little pipe cleaners. Dip them in alchohal and they work really well for cleaining delicate and expensive needle tips.

You'll probably need to buy the H&S hose, or at least a fitting to make it work with the hose that came with the compressor. I've never used a plastic hose but it seems like it would be rigid and a pain to use. It's probably worth the money to just get the braided one.

If you have your cleaning supplies, your compressor, regulator, water trap, and it all hooks up to your brush you should be ready to rock and roll. But you'll need paint of course :0P

A respirator rated for organic vapours is important if you value your health.

Skippy wrote:A respirator rated for organic vapours is important if you value your health.

You need to have a respirator? I assume you mean painting with enamels?

I have seen more and more airbrushed work lately and thought about getting an airbrush. However, apart from the cost, two things bug me: 1. You're advised to do the spraying in a well-ventilated area. There is no part of my house I am happy to get oversprayed paint on if I have a window open, and the weather in the UK is almost never good for spraying outside. 2. I have developed a lung condition with no obvious cause so I am scared to make that any worse by breathing in whatever. Even if you wear a mask, I imagine the paint floats around in the air and once you take the mask off, you breathe it in. Who is it who has a home spray booth? I know when you're young you don't imagine you'll get any health problems but having developed them, you begin to regret not taking more precautions. So this rather puts me off.

I would like to know this.

From what I can find on the 'net, you really only need a respirator that will trap the particles. Water-based acrylics aren't too hazardous, but you probably don't want those pigments in your lungs. HEPA filters are recommended. If you are brushing with solvents harsher than water, it's probably a very good idea to use something rated for organic solvents.

Wearing a respirator is definitely a good idea and perhaps necessary depending on how much time you put in behind the AB. I wouldn't be incredibly concerned about things remaining in the air after a paint session. Open up a window or your garage door afterwards and that should be fine. I do all of my work in the garage, but I would have no concerns about doing it inside. There is very little overspray and the paint does not travel far. Heck if you are too far away from the mini with the airbrush the paint will dry mid air and create a rough surface. You need to be up close and personal with whatever you are painting. I do not have any paint marks on my work surface outside of 3 feet (from origin) and I am the messiest person on earth when it comes to blowing cleaner / old paint through it. In my opinion there is very little need for a hood or spray booth of some kind. As long as you are smart about what you are doing its really not a big deal. After using one for a bit I would never consider going back to pure brushwork to paint a large force (or really anything honestly).

Ok, I did some looking around.

To connect my airbrush to a hose, do I need this?

http://www.elmcityhobbies.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=166_167&products_id=2059

And how important is a water trap to starting out. At this point I want to get stuck in, but really not sure if I should order a water trap and wait. And as for the braided hose, I think I will wait on it, the plastic hose should be fine for now. But when I do order a hose is there any difference in the size? I think what I am running now is 1/4".

Thanks for all the help thus far guys!

elrabin wrote:From what I can find on the 'net, you really only need a respirator that will trap the particles. Water-based acrylics aren't too hazardous, but you probably don't want those pigments in your lungs. HEPA filters are recommended. If you are brushing with solvents harsher than water, it's probably a very good idea to use something rated for organic solvents.

The alcohol and other nasty things in most cleaners are not good to breath. Windex is probably worse as its not designed to be atomised so finely. A proper respirator is £20 (probably less over there), is it really worth taking the risk for such a small amount?

Any reputable airbrush tutorial or retailer will say use one, theres a reason for it.

Dorksim wrote:Ok, I did some looking around.

And how important is a water trap to starting out. At this point I want to get stuck in, but really not sure if I should order a water trap and wait. And as for the braided hose, I think I will wait on it, the plastic hose should be fine for now. But when I do order a hose is there any difference in the size? I think what I am running now is 1/4".

Air compressors pull in the air from the room. Depending on how humid your room is, the humidity created condensation inside your hose which will eventually work its way to your airbrush and into your paint spray. A water traps keeps that water out of your hose/gun and from messing with your paint.

You could probably get by without one depending on what you're doing. Base coating large things would probably be fine. Any detail work or blending though, if water hits your paint flow in the middle of doing something important it will ruin it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fra Charmelandro wrote:I have seen more and more airbrushed work lately and thought about getting an airbrush. However, apart from the cost, two things bug me: 1. You're advised to do the spraying in a well-ventilated area. There is no part of my house I am happy to get oversprayed paint on if I have a window open, and the weather in the UK is almost never good for spraying outside. 2. I have developed a lung condition with no obvious cause so I am scared to make that any worse by breathing in whatever. Even if you wear a mask, I imagine the paint floats around in the air and once you take the mask off, you breathe it in. Who is it who has a home spray booth? I know when you're young you don't imagine you'll get any health problems but having developed them, you begin to regret not taking more precautions. So this rather puts me off.

I spray in a corner room in my house with a window on two walls to get a nice cross breeze. But even with that I usually wear a construction grade respirator.

I don't have a nice booth to spray in but it's on my list of things to build. For probably $100 I could build something with a small fan and filter which would suck up most all of the particulates floating in the air. But between the booth fan and the compressor it would make me room pretty noisey.

The amount of paint/cleaner/thinner in the air depends a lot on what you are doing. If you are base coating you are going to be throwing out a lot of paint from relatively far away for a long time. That puts a lot of residue into the air. If you are using your brush for detail/blending work you are using a smaller nozzle, less paint, closer to the model, for short periods of time. For stuff like that a booth may be over kill. A big piece of cardboard would be fine and you may not even need a mask depending on how many windows were around.

If you already have lung problems then I would suggest building a booth with a fan and filter, not using Windex to thin your paint/clean your brush (the ammonia in Windex is what makes it such an effect thinner for acrylics, but it’s also terrible to breath in), and make sure your room has windows in places you can get a lot of air moving through the room, and get yourself a high quality mask. I find that after I'm done there's usually no sign/smell/clues that I was airbrushing within a few minutes of finishing, and I don't even have a booth. But if you find paint residue around your table or lingering smell of alcohol then you need to do something else to reduce the amount of stuff you're putting into your air..