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So, my anniversary is coming up and I am hoping my wife will get me an airbrush setup. I am looking to stay under 200 used and need to be able to use it in an apartment so quiet and small are good. It will be mostly for priming/base coating and maybe for a little help on the vehicles. Any suggestions would be great as I have never used one and have no idea what I am looking for. From what I read I am in need of atleast 2 diff guns, one for basing and one for smaller details but beyond that I am clueless. A list of all the little things I will need to go with it such as pipettes and a cleaning station would be appreciated as well.

Two brushes are nice - but not really necessary. You can normally change the needles to adjust the pattern size. The Iwata HP which is often recommended on these sites can go from a pencil line all the way up to a couple inches across which can handle details and base coating well enough. I find having multiple brushes to be more handy when I am using multiple paints...though I also have a Badger 350 which handles most my primer/base/clear coating needs.

The various little things will all sort of depend on you. I use dropper bottle for almost all my paints, so pipettes are not needed (I have them for measuring bulk items though like glazes from 1 quart containers). Paints that are not in dropper bottles get put in dropper bottles to make them easier to measure out and what not.

I have honestly never used a cleaning station in 20 some odd years of using an airbrush. Pretty sure they probably do what they are meant to do...but what they are meant to do can be handled in a lot of other ways. Also, the vast majority of them don't deal with bottom feed guns that well.

The reason that that is fairly important is that while the vast majority of my paints are in dropper bottles - I have my primer/base/clear coat paints in glass bottles for my 350. They let me pop it right onto the bottom of the brush and go to town. When I am done - I pull the paint bottle off, and put on a clean bottle that has cleaner in it and I spray that to clean the brush. This is important, because while it is a bad thing to let paints dry in your brush...it is really bad to let those particular types of paint dry. They are designed to stick, and they stick well if you let them. Most of them are also enamels or lacquers which makes them stick even better when compared to acrylics.

Anyway, with apartment living - it becomes important to have some way to keep the over spray under control. You don't want to have a wall which is shaded over time from various paints used...and you definitely don't want the missus to get on you about the various smells and what not. I built all of mine, and they are not too hard to do. Most the retail ones will be stretching your budget from the get go by themselves though, so you might want to look at the different options there.

The other big, little thing that most people sort of forget about is something like a turntable for holding the models while you paint them. Initially, I held them in my (generally) gloved hand. This was a bit of a pain, so I put together a couple of turntables which allow me to keep my fingers away from the model/mini and turn it to get everything painted. Again, there are a lot of DIY options as well as retail choices that can be made here.

The final bit of information is regarding which to choose. A couple years ago, Airbrush Action ran an article where they talked about the different manufacturers of airbrushes and the perceived knock offs of those manufacturers. It turns out that while there are literally dozens of different brands which you can buy there are actually only about a half dozen companies that actually make the airbrushes. Rich Pen is the big manufacturer from Japan. They make their own brand as well as brushes for Iwata, Tamiya, Gunze and a dozen or so other companies. They are all the same brushes, made in the same factory, of the same materials. The only difference is what name plate gets etched on them and who's box they get put into. Badger and Paasche make most the Made in the USA, they make their own as well as brushes for Bear and what not. There are a couple in Europe as well - though their names slip my mind (I have a GREX from over there...but I can't remember if they make their own or if they contract it).

Of course you have the Chinese knock offs, and I think that was sort of the point of the article. If you poke around, you can actually find some pretty good Chinese knock-offs out there for pretty cheap (I know Harbor Freight sell a couple of goodish knockoffs).

i got an AS186, which is a brandless compressor that a lot of other companies will buy whitelabel and resell it as their own.
and one of those chinese airbrushes...
great starterset and under $200

Thanks guys, as always lotsa good info on dakka!

what about single vs double action, siphon vs gravity ect...?

thinking about the AS 186 and http://www.amazon.com/Master-Airbrush-MAS-S68-AIRBRUSH-Auto-Hobby-Craft/dp/B0017U7S6G/ref=sr_1_15?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1343901559&sr=1-15&keywords=airbrush

or

http://www.amazon.com/Paasche-Double-Action-Gravity-Airbrush/dp/B00397Q1PO/ref=sr_1_22?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1343901559&sr=1-22&keywords=airbrush

As for the turntable and overspray booths, im good there, Ikea is your friend lol, cheap turntables and plastic containers turned on there side... great for priming with canned primers! i have a large 4ft x4ft window i open and place a fan into in order to draw the spell out and viola, insta paint booth with minimum wife agro!

Always go for double-action as it gives you more control and in our business gravity feed is the norm.

Here is another suggestion of airbrush. A tad more on the expensive side but easy to maintain comes with a 0.15mm needle and a 0.4mm along with two sizes of paint cups.

http://www.harder-airbrush.eu/infinity/index.php

Look up the infinity 2-in-1, that is what I use and I love it.

thanks eric for the info and the 2 in 1 looks GREAT but it is more expensive by it self than i am looking to spend. I want to stay under 200 for the brush and compressor. it will mostly be for priming and base colors so 300 for just the brush is a little over kill. maybe after a couple years of practice and seeing if i even like using an airbrush ill look at them again.

Paasche D-3000R compressor: $145
http://www.chicagoairbrushsupply.com/d3000.html

Iwata HP-CS Airbrush: $135
http://www.chicagoairbrushsupply.com/iwechp.html



Yea, a BIT higher than you wanted to spend, but its an amazing setup. The brush is easy to break down and clean, and can do small details and large models (though I wouldn't try it on titans... biggest its really good for is things like stormravens).

I wouldn't really skimp on this, because if you get a cheapo kit, it might not work as well, and could frustrate you and turn you off of the whole thing. I know I regret plunking down $100 on a crappy compressor+airbrush before I got this setup.

Check out my blog in sig if you wanna see pictures of what I can do with it

Thanks horst, a little over the price i wanted but not 2 bad, def gonna give this one some thought.

Well I've got one of the cheap-o Harbor Freight setups for $90 thats a double action bottom feed airbrush, and the compressor.

The better I get at using, and adjusting it the more I like it. These things are very USER sensitive. lol. Takes some patience to get them to work right.
First hurdle was properly thinning paint. Too thin it's tries to run, too thick it clogs the brush. Some use water, but I've had nothing but bad results trying to thin with water. So I only use airbrush thinner now.
Cleaning immediately after use is vitally important. Can't be stressed enough. I use mine in a portable homemade spray booth (cardboard box on a stool lol) next to the sink. Which allows me to spray hot water through it after each use.
If you want a better compressor setup with a tank (it would be quieter in that it will run less) I would get a good airbrush compressor with a tank. Then grab the double action airbrush from Harber Freight I think it's on sale right now for about $15.

Wagguy80 wrote:Well I've got one of the cheap-o Harbor Freight setups for $90 thats a double action bottom feed airbrush, and the compressor.

The better I get at using, and adjusting it the more I like it. These things are very USER sensitive. lol. Takes some patience to get them to work right.
First hurdle was properly thinning paint. Too thin it's tries to run, too thick it clogs the brush. Some use water, but I've had nothing but bad results trying to thin with water. So I only use airbrush thinner now.
Cleaning immediately after use is vitally important. Can't be stressed enough. I use mine in a portable homemade spray booth (cardboard box on a stool lol) next to the sink. Which allows me to spray hot water through it after each use.
If you want a better compressor setup with a tank (it would be quieter in that it will run less) I would get a good airbrush compressor with a tank. Then grab the double action airbrush from Harber Freight I think it's on sale right now for about $15.

Unless you have a damn good filtration/purification system in your house, you shouldn't run tap water through your airbrush. Tap water is full of minerals and other goodies that can leave deposits inside your airbrush. Head over to the grocery store and buy a gallon of distilled water and use that instead.

i will be using bottled/distilled water cause our tap water is non potable and you can see the stuff in it...

I use Vallejo Thinner + Vallejo paints (and some Createx airbrush paints, those things are awesome).

But yea, Vallejo Thinner works really well.

I only use the water for cleaning while I am airbrushing. Once I'm done for the day I use airbrush cleaner.

Wagguy80 wrote:I only use the water for cleaning while I am airbrushing. Once I'm done for the day I use airbrush cleaner.

You are still putting mineral-rich water in your airbrush, the cleaner will not remove deposits. Buy some distilled water and put it in a dropper bottle or use an eye dropper ($1.99 for a two pack at Walgreen's) and run that to clean between color changes. Better yet, buy some airbrush cleaner and mix a bottle with distilled water 50/50 and use it to clean between colors. You'll double the life of your cleaner and it works better than straight water.

Bottom line; if you value your equipment, don't run tap water through at any time.

First of all, congrats on heading down this path...you will love it.

Secondly, there are TONS of threads on this topic...in fact, one pops up about every 8 days (seriously).

Thirdly, most of the adivce here is is spot on, but a few things are quite subjective.

My take;
You don't need an expensive brush to start, just get a cheap double action, gravity feed is nice as well.

To thin paints, alcohol (97%) or windex work better than water (chemically, it has to do with the surface tension of the water and paint molecules). I use liquitex airbrush medium, it works great.

Paints: I thin paints (gw, reaper, vallejo, tamya, etc.) but overall, prefer airbrush colors...better pigments and no hassle.

I use: golden, createx and vallejo model air and allclad.

Check out; awesomepaintjob. com - there are some good airbush articles there...

here is another basics vid, which is quite good;
http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/airbrush-everything-part-15-intro?