Airbrush Safety?

[GobotFool]

Hello all, I'm new to making plastic models. While I've always wanted to try out an airbrush but I currently live in an apartment. I'm told as long as I build, or buy, a spray booth with a fan and filter set up that can vent all the dangerous fumes outside, that I can safely use an airbrush in my apartment. Is this true?

[winterdyne]

As long as you won't get your ass kicked by your neighbours 'cos your compressor makes a racket, you can use an airbrush safely.

It's what you put through it that can be nasty. I don't think an extractor setup is absolutely required, but you have to be aware that breathing paint particles is not good for you. Ensure you ventilate the room (open a window!), and work in short shifts, allowing the air to clear in the interim. Avoid using lacquers if you don't have a proper respirator / mask and painting room (one that stops the stink from spreading), or use those outside only. Tamiya paints and future are fine indoors, not too smelly and not too persistent. Priming with a rattlecan remains a smelly step though.

[warpaint22]

As long as you won't get your ass kicked by your neighbours 'cos your compressor makes a racket, you can use an airbrush safely.

It's what you put through it that can be nasty. I don't think an extractor setup is absolutely required, but you have to be aware that breathing paint particles is not good for you. Ensure you ventilate the room (open a window!), and work in short shifts, allowing the air to clear in the interim. Avoid using lacquers if you don't have a proper respirator / mask and painting room (one that stops the stink from spreading), or use those outside only. Tamiya paints and future are fine indoors, not too smelly and not too persistent. Priming with a rattlecan remains a smelly step though.

Follow winterdyne's advice he is spot on, try and get a quite compressor I use a Holding 103 compressor and my office-workstation is in my lounge room and I don't get any complaints from the misses about not hearing the TV so that's a good start. Just becareful with clear coats lacquers as I've turned the whole house into a foggy mess, it looked like I'd had 50 smokers in the house at once puffing cuban's.

[David Hingtgen]

Enamel/lacquers---it's the fumes/solvents that are bad. For acrylics, it's the actual atomized paint that's bad. (Acrylic paint spray may not smell dangerous, and chemically it's not---but it gets in your lungs and coats them like rubber)

[winterdyne]

Amen. And breathing a lungful of thinner in the hope of dissolving the paint coating your airways is not a great idea - a disposable DIY sanding mask can be disposed of when gunked up. Lungs are trickier. Advice I'll always echo, even if I don't always follow it, I know I should.

[GobotFool]

Thanks for the advice all. I had visited a few model web sites that offer safety tips, but most still were geared toward people who had garages or a single room they could wholly dedicate to their hobby.

I'll probably be sticking primarily just with acrylic paint. I know some of the more expensive off the shelf spray booth have decent fan and filter set ups, though probably will just make one myself. So, as long as I have a decently ventilated room and or have a booth with a filter system I can safely use an airbrush with acrylic paint? (yes I'd wear a mask as well.) So even with the thinner mixed in, its not the fumes that are dangerous it's just the paint particles? (for acyrlic paint that is where an actual compressor is used not those compressed air cans.)

[David Hingtgen]

Acrylic, enamel, and lacquer all have different definitions and variations within themselves. There are lacquered acrylics and enamel lacquers. Some acrylics are technically still petroleum-based enamels. Some use anti-freeze. Some use rubbing alcohol. It all depends and often to only way to really find out is to go by smell IMHO. It's all just "does it harm your brain or your lungs?"

Brushing acrylics is the "safest" paint method of all. For spraying--honestly I only ever spray outdoors, which is why I can only model when the weather's nice.

[Ghadrack]

If you can set up next to a window and have a box fan or one of those little office desk turbo fans and a cardboard box you can make a ghetto spray booth that will handle most issues

I threw mine away at the onset of winter but will make another one soon. I know there are tutorials on the internetz but basically you cut a cardboard box at an angle (In half diagonally) cut a hole in the back of the box the size of your fan. Set up your fan and spray box in front of the window, open window, turn on the fan blowing out the window and spray away. I still use a respirator when I paint or sand indoors or out but this blows most all waste/overspray outside. You end up with a rediculous looking fan after a few dozen sessions but if it is plastic you can usually scrape acrylic paint right off the blades.