Anakist:
You don't necessarily need a good air brush for painting bodies. Even a cheap one will work better than a spray can (but not much). Most of what you gain with a more expensive unit is for free hand painting and fine lines. If you're willing to be ruled (pun intended) by masking, a cheap air brush offers better control, cheaper paint, and custom mixing compared to a spray can.

Thanks Nil, But I would rather get a good one from the start. I thought about getting a cheap one, but the LHS said that most of them aren't worth it. Apparently the cheap ones here are prone to spatter and clogging.

James

They're all prone to clogging if not treated right, and the beauty of Lexan is that spattering doesn't show, unless you traction roll. I'd also point out that air brushes are not something you master overnight; I prefer to spend my time building/repairing/racing rather than learning to use one of those.

Yer, I'll second what Nil has to say.

I actually purchased my Airbrush from the US and saved about £45 (USD$60) on a £75 airbrush! So it is well worth looking at some of the US online stores like TowerHobbies and see what you like the look of, once you've found something, have a check round for somewhere that may have it cheaper (This is HM's cue to throw in his popular site which ive forgotten :D at least i think its HM)

The main cost i've found is the air!!
Cans or Compressor??
At pretty much the same price as a can of paint, you get about 50% more bodyshells done when painting with Cans of Air (Propellant (sp?)) but with a compressor you get loads of practice for free! you can afford to try things without having to spend on another can etc, but you've got the cost of the compressor!! Thats not cheap!! I paid £140 ($180 ish) but its well worth it, especially if you know your gonna be sticking with painting, if its just a phase, its an expensive phase!!

PC2K

Yeah the compressor will be the killer. My dad owns an industrial supply company, so I can get a compressor for cost +10%. And, I am thinking of getting a cheap, 12vDC one and making/buying a tank for it. I won't need much airflow so it should be ok. Then I can take it to the track to clean the dust off too.

James

I started out with a Badger set that included a Propel can and a lid/regulator for it. Badger sells an adapter for the lid that you can screw onto a spare tire. Then, with a bicycle pump and old tire (on the rim; an inner tube alone won't hold the pressure), I'd paint, pump, paint, pump. Good excercise, cheap, but it got old fast.

That is a good idea. I will have to look at that. I could probably make an adapter. Hmmm. Thanks Nil. I was thinking of an old LPG cylinder with inlet and outlet adapters. Then just a manual switch and relay for the compressor. I can get a cylinder easy, and the compressors are about $20 and go to 150psi. Then I just put a "real" welding regulator on it for pressure and flow rate and an adapter to connect to the airbrush.

James

HM- busy as ever, lot's of painting to do. the Yelllow pages thing sounds great! Been trying to catch all the spazstix stuff, but Spaz can't seem to make it fast enough for HRP. It's always out when I order from them ( weekly):( Parma has a new airbrush?



Paul C2K- Great! you'll be able to keep them in supply now.I definitely enjoy working with them more than laquers now that I have become acustomed to them.


Anakist- :D dodgy.......... :D
Help yourself to them man! the Mugen body is up on e-bay now.:D

JS,

Yeah, they do, though I am sure they are just putting their sticker on it. Iwata had their Revolution at the show, along with their other brushes. Mine arrived today and I am chomping at the bit to try them out! In my short 2+ years of painting, I've never once seen anyone say a single bad thing about an Iwata brush.


Anakist,
I'm of the opinion you get what you pay for. I don't know what a Revolution or an Eclipse would cost you over there, but they are very well made. I've gotten by with an Aztek 4709, which I think is a great brush but is definately NOT an airbrush meant to spray paint as thick as Parma Fascolors. It was designed to spray at 40 psi or less with modelers paints. The upside is that it uses different plastic tips so you can adjust your spray easily by changing tips and no paint ever enters the brush, so clean up is ridiculously easy. The down side is that it uses different plastic tips, and none of the tips can spray fascolor very finely at all and the tips wear out much faster then a metal brush, so you end up spending $10 every 4 months or so for a new one.

I went down the Car tire adapter route too, but that encouraged me to buy a Compressor!!
I actaully bought a car tyre pump for a few £££ and let that fill the tyre rather than the bike pump/exercise! but the hassel of pumping, changing adapter, attaching airbush hose, spraying for a few minutes and then the changing pressure throughout didnt help, so out came a handfull of notes!

PC2K

yep, can't go wrong with an Iwata!

Guys,
Seeing as were now on the subject or airbrushes etc, I have a Badger 155 Anthem and it seemed to have everything i'd need, the Badger name seemed to be a reliable one (for what i knew anyway).
The only thing i would say against it is that the ajustable needle (is that the dual action bit?) doesn't give a narrow enough spray. Theres no way i can do fine detail on the car. It sprays far too wide and if i get closer, the air movement disturbs the paint and you have the ripple effect. The Laquers dont do the ripple due to them being much thinner, but even then theres no small area control over the paint.

Anyway, What would both of you suggest as a step up from my 155-A?
I think the main reason i bought that was its features, the price was within range, and it being all chrome looked as sexxy as hell! :D

So, keeping within say $150, what would you guys recommend?

PC2K

I'm not sure about that model, but many airbrushes, including other Badger models, have different size tips; smaller for fine, larger for area. Check the manual to see if a smaller one is available.

Also, can you cut back on the air pressure so that you can get closer without the problems?

The Badger has the adjustable needle, so there isnt a need for different tips, as when you pull back on the trigger, the needle pulls back it changes the tip's size (to some extent)
As for pressure, Im a 15psi guy all the way. Dont need to go higher, or lower than that.

Would a Higher pressure on waterbased be recommended? I guess a low setting could result in spitting, so maybe thats where the problem lies, any ideas??

PC2K

Paul- spray the water based paints at 30-35 psi, you will be quite pleased. They don't thin enough to spray as well as the laquers your used too, but they work well other wise.

I use an Iwata eclipse, which uses one needle also. I find that drop shadows work best with slightly thinned color at 30 psi. Try to over lap the graphics you wish to shadow a bit more than you would the laquers if nothing else works

My first experiance of Laquers was Alclads chrome about 6 weeks after it arrived on US shores, and besides Alclad, there is no RC Laquer paints. Ive been using Parma/Createx paints for the past year, and I prefered 15psi with about 8"/200mm distance from the shell, but for detail like shaddow, i found it impossible due to rippling, so higher would sound the opposite, but perhaps im getting paint spatter rather than a general spray range. I'll check it out with your suggestion.

PC2K

JSBodies: I checked into the situation of why you have not been able to get Spaz Stix Paints from HRP when you are ordering. It was actually a pretty complex deal. First off, I just want you to know that this posting is solely for your information and not to be taken personally in any way.

Every day I check over HRP's stock. And so far, I have not had any problems keeping all of the products stocked daily at their warehouse. I asked Mike about this. He told me that you do most of your purchasing on the internet from HRP. What is happening is if there is more product on back order than there is on hand in the computer, then it will show as a 0 on the internet. Some customers will preorder their stuff or have an order they want shipped air and want the paint shipped with their next order in a day or 2 so it gets backordered and hurts the online quantities that are actually in their warehouse ready to be pulled. There is also the case that if the paperwork (invoice) that I give them has not been entered into the computer system, then you will also show 0 while there is product on their shelves. As it gets busier over there, the paperwork will lag a little bit more than when it is slow.

Bottom line: As long as you order the Spaz Stix Paints, I can almost 100% guarantee you that it is on their shelves and ready to be pulled and shiped to you. I am not sure if you can order anything that is showing 0 on the computer, so Mike recommends giving him a call anytime at 1-800-622-7223 to make sure you are taken care of to the best of his ability.

I sure hate to see anyone being a victim of the system. Do you have any ideas or suggestions that I could pass along to HRP? Just email me (onebulkyguy@spazstix.com) Thanks for understanding and once again I apologize for the trouble this has caused.

Spaz- thanks man! I was able to get a whole bunch of paint from HRP this week, spent over $140 on it. Picked up 2 of the 4" light kits and black light paints, can't wait to try them! Grabbed up 4 bottles of chrome too. I do all of my ordering on-line in the evenings as it's the only free time I have. I also run a tight budget, so large back orders are out of the question for now but I will sure order all of the paint even if it's "0" from now on.


Thanks again!

Spaz- it wasdn't any trouble, I'm very patient and don't mind waiting lol.........

JSBodies - Right on man:thumbsup: Just wanted to make sure you were being taken care of ;)

http://www.kimochi3d.com/misc/ae86.jpg
Basic paint/masking job. The front bumper and window lines are stickers though.

Just finished racing today. Last in the B main :) Everybody loved the Lexus though, so it wasn't all bad. Dodge Viper next I think.

James

Alvin - Great photographing. Looks almost like a real car. The color schemes match very well with the backgrounds. Might want to add a slight line or 2 down the sides to simulate a door.

Looks good Alvin.

James

Very nice Alvin! Very clean lines and great photography!

Alvin- sweet!!!! very cool photography too.

Alvin:

Can you tell us a little about how you photographed this? From the depth of field, it certainly looks like a pinhole camera, scanned after developing, rather than a digital camera.

Good question Nil. It does look like a good quality camera. Too much of the picture is in focus for it to be any of the digital camera's I have seen.

James

Hiya!
Sorry guys for the late reply - I'm quite swamped with work.

Ok I used a sony dsc-p9. The original image was taken at about 1pm at 1280x1024 resolution.

I took the picture by placing the camera on the ground; I put a plastic bag on the ground for protection below the camera (noon tarmac is hot! and dusty) and snapped it from there. That's about it.

However I made some changes to the camera settings - by switching off all auto focus and auto stuff.

E.g. No autofocus, I set the focal distance to 1m. Speeds up phototaking too.

No auto-ISO setting (whatever that is) I used a value of ISO400 for the picture. I should have used an iso value of 200 - much less noise in the high-res picture. But an iso of 400 allows me to shoot photos faster, especially when i'm on the move or shooting fast moving objects.

Manual white balance - I simply set to daylight. Looks good in the viewfinder.

Digital zoom is shut off also, so only pure optical zoom. Digital zoom gives pixelation anyway. I don't think this makes a difference as I'm shooting at... minimal zoom. Yeah.

"Spot meter" was on, but i have no idea what that does.

I got 2 more shots with my Celica, check 'em out here:

http://www.kimochi3d.com/misc/ae86celica.jpg
http://www.kimochi3d.com/misc/ae86celica2.jpg

I would advice you guys to bring along some headwear and a piece of dark plastic/thick paper to shield the viewfinder from the sunlight - in broad daylight the lcd is next to useless. I had to virtually lie down on the bloody tarmac, shield the lcd, and then snap the shot.

Thanks for the praise dudes!

Regards,
Alvin

Wicked. Looks like all that effort was worth it.

James

Alvin, very nice work. hope to see more of your work here soon!

Well , I finally got the hang of the new spaz stix color change paint.
I was amazed at the amount of bodies on e-bay that are painted with it though! My chrome and color change MBX crowd pleazer body didn't get a single bid.

Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Hey guys, Hank made the painting thread "sticky" :D ! now we won't have to chase it down, and those with painting questions will be able to quickly find it and post their questions now.

Thanks Hank!!! :D

Yeah it is good JS. Unlucky with the body. I wish I could afford it.

James

Doesn't HPI have a 190mm Dodge Viper body???

James

Anakist, checked HPI's site and they don't have one posted on the
190mm page.

Originally posted by Anakist
Doesn't HPI have a 190mm Dodge Viper body???Doesn't look like it. Parma does:

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p.pgm?Q=1&I=LXDA48&P=7

Parma is generally a little lower in detail than HPI. I like 'em 'cause Parma is a suburb of Cleveland, even if they're in North Royalton (another suburb) now, and they have a good selection of American iron. There web site stinks, though. Tower has more info on Parma bodies than Parma!?!?!

Nil- :D lol man.............

Hmm, I didn't think so. Pity. I am going to have to find one over here then.

James

Hey, here's a shot of my latest,a NSX for my micro.

micro NSX (http://www.jsbodies.com/NSX01.JPG)

JS:

Looks sharp; any estimate on the number of hours this took?

Anakist:

Tower takes foreign orders; I've been dealing with them for over 15 years.

Anikist- start to finish was about 4 hours.

Nil,
I am trying to avoid the hassle of getting it from overseas. If the lhs can get it in, then it isn't my problem if it is damaged in transit. Hopefully he can get one.

James

lol..... must have been up too late!
got my names mixed up!

Beautiful work JS!

Hi, i've been spraying shells with an airbrush for a couple of years now, mainy for myself. After a year of being fed up with the standard cellulose paint coming off, i tried the water based paints used to paint real cars. The range of colours is extremely great and the best part is, it won't come off at all, even if the shell gets permenatly creased. You don't need expensive thinners as you just use water and can even spray it neat. Hope this can save some dissapointment. Keep up the great work with the forum.

L.Larry.:thumbsup:

LL:
Sounds interesting. Can you give us some particulars, like brand names, smallest can sizes, costs?

Charlie Barnes is Da' Man !!! :dude:
Check out his latest work !!! :eek:

http://socal.rcracing.com/Images//spaztix.jpg

Now that is a really awesome paintjob!!

Yep, Charlie B is Da Man alright!!
Jesse, see about getting some pics in the dark, should look killer!!

PC2K

Yeah, charlie's work is outstanding. Paul, did you see the "How to paint" update yet? Click here (http://www.rctech.net/articles/painting_hauntedmyst.shtml)