yorkshire_keith

Happy to be educational Azrhino, hope I wasn't teaching my grandmother to suck eggs ( how do you suck those things) Well they haven't banned it yet BigF and my local auto paint stockist is still offering it to me so there you go even when the EEC makes a cock up they're so lumbering slow it takes them years and years to do it. For crash helmets It depends on what your lid is made of as I'm sure you know Polycarb doesn't do well with any kind of solvent so you're stuck with what you can find that's water soluable. I wont touch 'em because of the legal implications if some ones head get's shattered in a lid I painted. Glass fibre and Kevlar are supposed to be fine with just about anything but I still do my best not to sand through the original paint just to flat it down so that what I put on doesn't actually come into contact with the stuctural shell of the helmet. I then put a coat of 2K or cellulose primer on (cellulose seems ok under other types of paint but no good ontop of them )followed by ford arctic white (coz it's cheap) to give the colours a bright even ground, flat that down with 800 grade W&D and start work. I will put on absolutely anything that sticks. Tamiya, Humbrol (waterbased not enamels)or 2k paints for base colours, translucent artists liquid airbrush acrylic inks to put on tints and shades. Sometimes brush painting lines or faces etc I've even use oilpaints for certain effects, It doesn't really matter because it's all going under three thick coats of 2k clear gloss (2k works really well over the top of stuff inc cellulose if it's been left for a couple of days first but not so good under things) which will then be sanded till it's like a billiard ball and given another coat or two of over thinned 2k(to reduce orange peel effect). Of course you can use 2k from start to finish if you want then it'll be flatter and you reduce the risk of a strange reaction between paints. I find I only get bad reactions when I introduce cellulose or the old fashioned spirit base enamels into the equasion and that's another reason I don't often use them. If I use cellulose the whole helmet has to be cellulose from start to finish and each layer you intend to mask over really needs time to cure to gain enough strenth to ensure the removal of masking tape doesn't pull it off. This leads to long jobs I can't be doing with.

Azrhino calm yourself. Not all Cyanoacrylates are glue. 2 Pack acrylic is a paint and activator cyanoacrylic paint ( also known as 2k ) which used to be used extensively by the auto body repair industry. It's far more durable and waterproof than cellulose and it cures quicker. I can put a coat of 2k clear gloss about 1mm thick over for example Humbrol water base acrylics, put it in the oven at 80CËš and flat it down with 1200 wet and dry 3hrs later, polish it with a cutting paste to a brilliant gloss and put it in the post the next morning and it'll arrive without a mark on it but, as you might expect with the hardener containing cyanide, it's lethal. So most of the industry has switched to the new waterbased acrylic formulations which are safer but much softer and need a precise airflow and temperature controlled environment to cure properly.( even then a couple of full programme automatic car washes will have them looking twenty years old and as for tree sap....) I can't afford to build myself that kind of facility in my garage anyway but Cellulose doesn't give the kind of Billiard Ball hard finish bikers want on their helmets or stand up to the constant contact with petrol round a tank filler. I have the added problem that though Cellulose is far less harmfull than 2K The EEC are rumoured to be about to ban it for sale to the public which leaves me with 2k as the only long term option.

Hi Azrhino How.. By over thinning them to about 200% they go through absolutely no problem at all (and they seem to dry just as tough and hard as if you follow the instructions and put them through a full size spray gun.) + Taking all normal precautions Filters, extraction, Airfed mask etc. For what purpose.. Petrol tank murals, auto art, illustrated clockdials, mechanical clock automata like little soldiers etc, slot car and radio control car bodies and for putting a really waterproof, evaporation-proof or polishable laquer over other media such as water-based acrylics or even oil paints if you build it up thick enough. though for the latter you need to thin it less and use the yellow nozzle in my opinion. The last time I used them was to recreate the decals when I restored my dad's old ATCO lawnmower.

Can't say how silent they are...sorry. No doubt someone will soon. I just wanted to jump in in defence of aztek airbrushes...a bit. I wouldn't agree with all the claims I've heard about their good points but I would also disagree with many of the bad points you hear of as well. For instance. you don't need a cart load of tips to paint detail, you need one and as it opens up fairly well you can use it for most coverage with water based inks very well. They are cheap if you don't get tempted by all the bells and whistles sets and they clean up as easily as a normal airbrush though no easier. I've been a professional airbrush artist for twenty two years, for 18 of which I used the same DeVillbis Aerograph Super 63 C. A damn fine brush it was and I bought it second hand whilst at art college in the first place. I really loved that brush and when it finally became too rattly and worn to maintain a smooth action without spattering and backfeeding I thought I'd try the aztek. I , like one of your other conventional brush contributers find I only need to take the thing apart once a week. Only in my case it's just the nozzles which split down to the four parts:- needle, spring, inner and outer, easily. I then dump them into a cup of acetone for two minutes and they're spotless. The rest of the time spraying a bit of airbrush cleaner or cellulose thinners through it keeps it perfectly on song, depending what sort of paint I'm using. Because the paint in the main chanber stays wet a quick spray of the relevant thinner cleans it easily. I really apreciate being able to choose which side of the body to put the cup because I prefer them on the right giving me a better view of the piece when using the big jars. The newer metal body feels nice in the hand and is easy to dissassemble unlike the plastic body though that isn't exactly difficult you just have to have the guts to try prizing it open ( I take everything apart it's just in my nature ). I didn't like the plastic body myself. it's just too light in the hand and the rubber grip tends to go "yucky" after contact with too much cellulose thinners but owners without my investigative nature may be suprised to know that their were more metal parts inside the older plastic bodies than there are in the new metal one. The plastic parts stay cleaner and less gunged better than the metal ones did especially if you put 2pack cyanoacrylates through it as I do occasionally So TesTors are improving the design as time goes on, that's also why I like the ability to use the all plastic nozzles which doesn't exist with most brushes. In short I don't think they're in anyway gods gift to airbrushing but they do have some very useful qualities and we can tend to react against things sometimes just because they're different