Airbrushing

It’s a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

In February I ordered an airbrush through Ebay. It was dirt cheap and was being sent from somewhere in China, post free. I’m not quite sure how this works but it does. Well, usually. Actually, this time it didn’t. The expected delivery date was sometime in mid-April and when it hadn’t arrived by the start of May, I contacted the seller and they gave me a refund.

Undeterred, I ordered another one from Amazon and it arrived yesterday. The instructions were sparse but I put it together and sprayed some water through it just to make sure that it worked.

This evening, I decided to give it a proper road test, with colour. I looked at a few videos and articles, and got a general idea about how to thin the paint (I had bought some thinners with the airbrush), and how to manipulate the brush to get different effects.

So I assembled everything, mixed some red and yellow acrylic paints, thinned them, plugged in the compressor and pulled the trigger. A bit of a hiss but no colour. I assumed that the paint was too thick. So, I put more thinners in and had another go. A bit of a splutter and a little splash but not the expected free-flowing colour.

So, more thinners. A shake. Pulled the trigger and … yes. A fine spray.

It lasted long enough to do this but then I think the paint dried in the brush and it stopped spraying. I know the acrylic paints I used this evening were quite viscous. I think I might try some different acrylic paints to see if they stay wet longer.

The thing is a pain to clean by the way.