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Hi guys, i am a complete noob to airbrushing and am looking to get going on it this holiday season. I was wondering whether if I buy an airbrush, if there are specifics i need to look for in terms of knowing whether a compressor made by a separate company will be compatible with my airbrush

in other words- would any airbrush compressor work with any airbrush, or do i need to buy them by the same company?

I think so more or less. Just check the connector types for each to make sure. As an example I have an Iwata airbrush and a compressor from Harbor Freight and they work fine together. As long as the compressor is for an airbrush you should be fine.

 John Rainbow wrote:
I think so more or less. Just check the connector types for each to make sure. As an example I have an Iwata airbrush and a compressor from Harbor Freight and they work fine together. As long as the compressor is for an airbrush you should be fine.

awesome, thank you! my other question is regarding paints. is there a medium i can purchase to make regular gw paints airbrush compatible, or would i have to purchase air paints only (ie vallejo)

I've used GW paints in my airbrush, you just need to water them down a bit. I just used tap water to dilute mine, most people say you want the consistency to be the same as milk.

Having said that I bought some valejo air and you can use them straight out the pot and the colours are awesome.

I use a 3 gallon compressor. As long as you can adjust the output pressure any air source will work.

Yes, you can mix compressors. I have used everything from a big very noisy garage compressor to a very quiet high end airbrush compressor on my brushes.

But just as GreenNutz said, make sure you can adjust the pressure - airbrushing uses pressure much lower than is useful for many other compressor uses.

Also make sure your fittings are the same size, or get some adapters.

On thinning paints - there are LITERALLY dozens of threads on this, it gets asked about every two weeks... so do a search or ...honestly, just scroll down.

Finally, there are several threads on airbrushing - this question (must be the holiday) usually gets asked about every two weeks, but recently has been asked about every three days.

So if you want to see tons of cool info on airbrushing in general, just scroll down and read the threads that have "airbrush" or "thinning paint' or "airbrush paint" in them.

best of luck!!!!

All compressors will work with any airbrush pretty much.

The chances that the compressor is too weak for an airbrush is pretty slim, I personally can't think of a compressed air tool with a lower requirement of pressure to operate?

you may need some connectors/adapters to make it fit.
For example my Badger patriot 105 has a special fitting on the airbrush and needs an adapter to bring it upto the standard 1/8 inch hose fitting.
All other airbrushes I've used have a 1/8inch input.
While bigger sprayguns (for cars and such like) tend to be 1/4inch inputs.
Most compressors output in either 1/4inch or 1/8inch.. Theres a lot of adapters for those sizes, so getting it to what you need is relatively easy.

Using a manometer (pressure guage/control dial) you can limit even a big beasty compressor right down to be good for airbrushing. Infact you will kind of need to have a manometer / moisture trap on the compressor anyway to stop it spitting moisture when its running hot. (airbrush specific compressors tend to have this already, while bigger workshop style compressors might not have the moisture trap part.

For thinning citadel paints, I always swore by Liquitex Airbrush medium. But recently changed my tune to Vallejo airbrush thinner it was just that little bit better than the liquitex medium.

I've used liquitex flow medium to thin out paints. It works pretty well. If you're starting out though I would recommend just getting a set of airbrush paints for Vallejo or Badger or whoever to save you having to mess around getting the consistency correct and such - just get straight into learning how to paint with them!

Here's my standard response to the Citadel paint thinning question: