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Airbrushing wood... help?!

  • 13-07-2015 4:01pm
    #1
    DeVore
    Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    I just bought myself a nice new airbrush (the Lidl compressor came with a cheap one but its much really). I have a couple of basic questions about airbrushing onto some of my wood turning pieces...


    1. I'm trying to figure out if I need new paints (the ones I have are water mixed) or if I can use ink in this (internal mix) airbrush....

    2. Do I need a fixing agent?

    3. I mixed up a batch of paints with water and the yellow flows lovely, the white doesn't. The white either doesn't come out much or if I pull back on the trigger more, it sprays so much liquid onto the sheet that it runs (the same action doesn't do that with the Yellow). Now I would have thought that means I need it to be thicker BUT as memory serves, I mixed the white thicker than the yellow... help!?

    4. My compressor doesn't have an variability to the pressure and seems quite strong (but then again, I wouldn't really know!). I can vary the air pressure with the "trigger" but that's quite sensitive and difficult. Is this something I just learn or something I should look into?


    Any tips or advice for a newbie?! Many thanks for any help!


Comments

  • #2
    Dramatik
    Registered Users Posts: 899 ✭✭✭Dramatik


    Personally the only paint I've ever used in my airbrush is the "Wicked Colors" brand so I can't answer your first question, although if you are looking for some high quality paint I would highly recommend this brand.

    For number 2 It's always a good idea to protect your work especially if you've spent a lot of time working on it. I use a two part resin mix to protect my work it's called "pebeo gedeo crystal resin" When dry this stuff is completely transparent and looks like glass depending on how many coats you put on. It is extremely hard when dry and doesn't seem to scratch easily.

    3. If it's not coming out properly you need to reduce the paint down, if the paint is too thick it clogs the tip so reduce your white down more and it should work. Personally I don't think I've gone much thicker than 50/50 eg. 5 drops paint to 5 drops reducer, I find I get better performance when the paint is reduced down more than that.

    4. Personally I don't generally mess around with the psi on mine so I just leave it, I just set it at the psi recommended for my particular airbrush. When I'm using mine I usually push the trigger down fully at all times and then pull it back slightly when I want the paint to flow. I usually have to pull it back about 1/4 of the way to paint a semisolid line and about half way to get a solid line. I only pull the trigger the whole way back if I am filling in a large space from quite a distance away.

    Hope that answers some of your questions, if you have more let me know and I will do my best to answer them.


  • #3
    DeVore
    Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    Ah I have a lot of experience with Gedeo Crystal Clear.... primaraily for turning pens, bangles or filling big gaps. How do you apply it... just brush it on?


    When you say "reducer" you mean water? (I'm diluting these paints with water)


    I just ordered a bunch of inks an hour ago! I've tried ink just directly into the hopper of my airbrush and it seems to work a treat! Thanks for the recommendation for the paints, I think I'll check them out too (for things where I need to cover over previous sprays... like white etc).


  • #4
    DeVore
    Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    Ok a good bit of "mucking about" with my new airbrush has revealed a few neat features. There is a knob at the front (underneath the nozzle) which controls the max air pressure, which stops the whole "paint being blown around like a *splat*" problem (the pressure was too high so any time I tried to go in for a fine line, it just blasted paint and water away like a tsunami).

    The rear has a knob for controlling the max paint so I cant over supply paint which also helps me from splurging. These things I did not know!

    Also I find inks are just a LOT better than water based acrylics and I'm pretty sure that's just my incompetence at mixing the paint to the right consistency but for my needs, ink will do nicely. I ordered a set of Daler-Rowney inks from these people http://www.specialistcrafts.ie/daler-rowney-fw-artists-acrylic-ink-large-pack (which is also the only place I've found in Ireland that sells Pebeo... do you know of another supplier?)

    So, happy days, just have to wait for them now :)


  • #5
    Dramatik
    Registered Users Posts: 899 ✭✭✭Dramatik


    DeVore wrote: »
    How do you apply it... just brush it on?

    You could brush it on with a cheap brush, just make sure there's no stray brush hairs stuck to it when you're done.
    DeVore wrote: »
    When you say "reducer" you mean water? (I'm diluting these paints with water)

    The paint I use has a special reducer made by the same brand that you thin the paint with. I'm not sure what brand paint you're using so I'm not sure what you should use as I've only used the paint I mentioned in my last post.
    DeVore wrote: »
    do you know of another supplier?

    You can get the resin in art and hobby shop, o'sullivans graphics sold it as well but I think I read somewhere that they've closed down recently.


  • #6
    Dramatik
    Registered Users Posts: 899 ✭✭✭Dramatik


    If you're looking for the wicked colour paint, I order them from Northern Ireland. I haven't been able to find anywhere else to get them in Ireland. They have a good selection of colours to choose from:

    http://www.smdesigns.co.uk/wicked-colours?pra_a=list&l=100&or=lh


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  • #7
    DeVore
    Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    Ok my Daler-Rowney inks arrived with morning (yay!) and I just did my first test with them. Red and white on black card. They come with nice ink droppers built into the caps which is handy. I put about 8 drops of red in first and it sprays beautifully. No real mess or splat at all (except once when I kinda tried to do it to see if it would or not). Nice fine lines too. Straight out of the bottle! (Call me lazy but I cant be arsed diluting things and as well as that I hate that I never get the consistency right... but mostly its the lazy thing).

    The red was fine, it needed to be laid on pretty thick to be clear on the black card but when I laid it down heavily enough it definitely came through. Tbh, I was more worried about the white as I doubted a white ink's ability to cover. Wow... its awesome. It's a lot better than my admittedly low expectations....

    I used water to wash the pen afterwards as per the makers instructions. One word of warning, this stuff dries incredibly fast. Inside the cup it was drying to it before I could go to the sink for a glass of water to wash it. I needed a toothpick to gently clean away some of it. I hate to think what that's doing inside my airbrush but I washed it out thoroughly after each ink. In future I think I'll put in a few drops more than I need and dilute it massively when I go to wash it, to keep it wet and stop it from sticking so fast.


    Next is to test it on wood and with a laquer spray but so far so happy!!


  • #8
    DeVore
    Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 32,387 Mod ✭✭✭✭DeVore


    And I might have been a bit over enthusiastic... The white seems to clog the brush a bit (I didn't shake the bottle first in my eagerness so it might be that)... and it needs a lot of cleaning. You can't let this stuff dry out in the brush or it sets like rock by the looks of it. I guess I really do have to clean thoroughly after each colour but that's ok I guess.


    Oh, and if you ARE cleaning an airbrush... don't look down the barrel to see if its clean and then pull the trigger. A friend told me that once. >.>


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