The Little World

I love my airbrushes now. The first one was a daunting challenge a few years ago but I have progressed since then – acquiring 4 altogether by now. I’m proud to say that using the latest model to spray an aircraft was…a daunting challenge.

It is not the fault of the airbrush maker, nor of the paint supplier, or even the meteorological department that provides the weather conditions. The model kit makers are not to blame for my challenges and the spray booth is working reasonably well so far. But getting a good coat of paint to look the way I want it to is a worry every single time.

I have a feeling that there is a Great Golden Airbrush or Spray Paint Gun hidden in the high mountains somewhere. If I could only find it all my troubles would be over.

In this episode of ” Nerves Of Steel At 18psi ” we saw me trying to get broad flat coats of semigloss grey lacquer onto a bomber. Big wings and fuselage but little channels and hidey-holes near the engine nacelles. The sort of landscape that could lead to orange peeling and rough finish if the temp/dilution/pressure equation is not right. Fortunately I did have it right, and the grey went down and looked good, but I found the small spray that is just perfect is really very small. It’s almost a scale size – as if a 1:72 airframe fitter was spraying the thing.

I could have done the job more efficiently with a rattle can – but I would not have been able to get the shade of grey I wanted. Plus the can would have set me back $ 15. The pot of paint that did the job was $ 5. What I really needed is a wider spray pattern at useful concentration.

I’ve tried a small industrial spray gun that throws a fan and breaks it up with external air streams – given the right dilution and enough paint in the pot it makes short work of scale models. But getting enough paint in the pot is the problem – it is really designed for spraying car details at 25-30 psi. Unless I had a squadron of Lancs all needing a black bottom, the gun is too big.

I really want a high flow single action gun that has a nozzle of about .6 to .8, a fan pattern, and a modest colour cup. I could eschew the fan pattern if there was enough flow, because I could spray in a flagged booth. Is there such a beast?