Completely new to airbrushing....

No swearing or throwing things??! Wow then you're doing good. Keep practicing and it will eventually start making sense.

Ha! Not the first night anyway. I imagine that will come as I practice more and don't improve like I think I should be!
 
Verdict: yours is faulty :)

Thanks for checking JackEB. It's especially interesting that yours has a hard limit on the fully open end. I had mine pressurized and as I was playing with it to try and understand why it wasn't behaving the way I expected, it shot right out of the valve body and went whizzing past my head!

As for your spidering on the glass .... welcome to the clan lol I can almost guarantee that we all did it when we started. I know I did.
Just keep a few things in your mind.
Thanks for the glass tips and great idea about dating and photographing! I wish I'd though of that last night since it was my first time but, on the other hand, I'm quite sure that I didn't magically improve in my sleep so taking a picture after practicing tonight will be just as good!

It will be frustrating in the beginning but your action should be (with brush locked and loaded for action) Move and continue moving, air on, paint on, paint off, air off, stop moving. One day you’ll realise you no longer think about how to put paint on the surface nd it’s a great feeling.

Ha, indeed that's what my brain is saying but by the time the signal gets to my finger it's seemingly several seconds behind. I will look forward to "one day" when by baud rate increases...

Drawing fine lines does take practise but think about how you’d draw a straight line with a pencil (and no cheating using a ruler) What happens when you go slow ? It’s wobbly right ?
Speed up a little and it’s easier :)

Valid point. I can do ok on being straight but I can also see where moving slow could also potentially lead to the line being thicker too (because more paint is hitting the same area vs. when you mov faster)? On the other hand, having to go over it a few times to get it dark will undoubtedly lead to thicker lines too since my robotic precision is lacking! The little sheet of paper that came with the CS shows that someone can draw fine lines with it, presumably in one pass? I guess this all goes back to everyone's points about it being a (mind-blurring) combination of different variables....
 
Looks like you're having fun! Glad to see you're off to a good start. Looks like you got some nice kit there as well.
I'm still waiting to see how ComArt works on a model. ;)

Thanks, I'm certainly happy with what I got, based on all the good advice here! As for the ComArt paint on a model - I'm still waiting to hear too! :p
I plan to do a little research into that in the near future.
 
The little sheet of paper that came with the CS shows that someone can draw fine lines with it, presumably in one pass?

Yes, the Eclipse is capable of doing very fine lines. Mostly depends on a scientific combination of psi, paint viscosity, distance, and trigger control! It is definitely a “sweet spot.”
 
Yes, the Eclipse is capable of doing very fine lines. Mostly depends on a scientific combination of psi, paint viscosity, distance, and trigger control! It is definitely a “sweet spot.”

LOL, ah yes, the "sweet spot" - (mostly) scientifically defined as the tangent to the derivative of the integral of a non-linear combination of 4 independent variables. I'll have THAT figured out in no time.....! lol
 
Thanks for checking JackEB. It's especially interesting that yours has a hard limit on the fully open end. I had mine pressurized and as I was playing with it to try and understand why it wasn't behaving the way I expected, it shot right out of the valve body and went whizzing past my head! ....

I bet you didnt think airbrushing was a sport lol Duck, weave, jump..... DOH.


Valid point. I can do ok on being straight but I can also see where moving slow could also potentially lead to the line being thicker too (because more paint is hitting the same area vs. when you mov faster)? On the other hand, having to go over it a few times to get it dark will undoubtedly lead to thicker lines too since my robotic precision is lacking! The little sheet of paper that came with the CS shows that someone can draw fine lines with it, presumably in one pass? I guess this all goes back to everyone's points about it being a (mind-blurring) combination of different variables....

'Dark' is all relative.. .. .. on a white surface it will appear dark..... you put other colours around it and it will look lighter.

Depending on what / where your line is there is always the option of using a sharpy ! sometimes a sheet of paper with a cut in it and splaying the cut a minute amount and then spraying is also an option. EG. when you are creating hair, you use a combination of sprayed lines, erasing with a #11 hobby blade, more colour...... repeat for a few layers will give the illusion of 1,000s of fine lines when in fact they arent.
There are many tools that can be used to acheive any given airbrushed goal so dont spend too much time sweating over the ability to create a hair width line :)
 
'Dark' is all relative.. .. .. on a white surface it will appear dark..... you put other colours around it and it will look lighter.

Depending on what / where your line is there is always the option of using a sharpy ! sometimes a sheet of paper with a cut in it and splaying the cut a minute amount and then spraying is also an option. EG. when you are creating hair, you use a combination of sprayed lines, erasing with a #11 hobby blade, more colour...... repeat for a few layers will give the illusion of 1,000s of fine lines when in fact they arent.
There are many tools that can be used to acheive any given airbrushed goal so dont spend too much time sweating over the ability to create a hair width line :)

Just when I thought the fire hose was starting to slow down ever so slightly....there's a whole new fire hose to drink from! :confused:

Point well taken however!
 
Oh, by the way, I noticed that under my name I am now labeled a "Double Actioner". I don't remember doing that....do I?
 
Oh, by the way, I noticed that under my name I am now labeled a "Double Actioner". I don't remember doing that....do I?
lol, its just because you've been here longer than 5 minutes and more than 2 posts....... it will change depending on how long you hang around and how many posts you make :)
 
Just when I thought the fire hose was starting to slow down ever so slightly....there's a whole new fire hose to drink from! :confused:

Point well taken however!
as an engineer I'm sure you are aware that there isnt just one step to a resolution :D
 
Oh, by the way, I noticed that under my name I am now labeled a "Double Actioner". I don't remember doing that....do I?
That’s the “Level” you’ve reached within the forum. Congratulations! Now you have to keep posting and liking until eventually you wake up one day and Mr. Micron has attached a nick name, as happened to me lol.


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That’s the “Level” you’ve reached within the forum. Congratulations! Now you have to keep posting and liking until eventually you wake up one day and Mr. Micron has attached a nick name, as happened to me lol.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lets blame all the nick names on Mr.Micron :ninja: - works for me lol
 
Spraygunner kindly (and quickly) sent a replacement H&S mac valve/quick connect and, go figure, it behaves exactly the same as the first! No air shut off and no modulation....sigh.

It's not critical as I can use the pressure regulator (and setting an actual number appeals to the enginerd in me) but it just makes no sense. Maybe 3rd time will be the charm....
 
Spraygunner kindly (and quickly) sent a replacement H&S mac valve/quick connect and, go figure, it behaves exactly the same as the first! No air shut off and no modulation....sigh.

It's not critical as I can use the pressure regulator (and setting an actual number appeals to the enginerd in me) but it just makes no sense. Maybe 3rd time will be the charm....
Could you post a couple pictures of how your rig is set up. It may not change the situation or we may be able to spot something that isn’t helping.


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Could you post a couple pictures of how your rig is set up. It may not change the situation or we may be able to spot something that isn’t helping.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry, I somehow missed the notification for your response. The setup is below. The hose comes from the regulator as you'd expect, connects to the H&S valve/QC combo, and then the brush plugs into that. If I take the male QC off of the brush, disconnect the valve from the air line, and plug the QC into the valve I can blow through it easily with my mouth regardless of the position of the knob. If I have things connected, changing the position of the knob makes zero discernible difference in the airflow (audibly) or the paintflow (visibly) through the brush.

I contacted Spraygunner as second time and reported that the second valve behaves the same as the first. Their response was that the valve wasn't supposed to shut the air all the way off but was simply to modulate the pressure. They also indicated that they had tested the second valve before they sent it and it seemed fine to them. It was a polite response but the behavior they describe is certainly different than what JackEB reported about how her H&S valve works. Unless I'm somehow using it wrong neither of the ones I have creates any significant pressure drop and they don't modulate a thing. I've used a lot of air lines/valves/quick connects in my life and I don't think I'm doing anything stupid here but on the other hand it wouldn't be the first time if I were....
 

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...and on a more positive note, I continue to practice each day and try to learn a few things. I guess I can say that I'm improving on very basic things like fundamental control of the brush but I am a loooong ways from being able to create nice effects or anything even remotely resembling art. I can actually get a pretty fine line (although not completely consistently), but am struggling with creating blends from dark to light (i.e. like the prototypical sphere exercise) and other less "digital" skills.

I have played with a few paints:

The Com-Art do seem to work very well and be easy to use straight out of the bottle. There seems to be some minor variation between colors (at least the ones that I have) in how much tip dry one may encounter but the small sponge with airbrush cleaner trick works well for that.

The local Hobby Lobby carries Vallejo paints so I tried one of the "Model Color" series. It is intended for brushing but they sell an airbrush thinner for it so I thinned it about 1:1 but it still was not very well behaved. The brush didn't plug but it also didn't perform consistently. I found a YouTube video where a fellow said that using Vallejo flow improver works better than the thinner so I'm going to play with that, primarily because Hobby Lobby has a pretty good selection of the Model Color paints so if I can make them work it would be convenient.

I also have tried the Vallejo "Model Air" series. These are their airbrush-ready paints. As it turns out Hobby Lobby also carries them but I missed them the first time (and as it turns out they only carry a few colors in this series too). They seem to spray about like the Com-Art paints, so pretty easy to use straight out of the bottle without problems. I actually put some of this on an RC model I'm working on today. Nothing fancy, just using the air brush as a spray gun to paint the leading edges of the vertical stabilizers on an aircraft, but it was easier and gave better results than if I'd brushed it on by hand so I'm happy.

I already had some bottles of Model Master acrylics. They are pretty thin so I decided to try spraying some since these are readily available at the local hobby store. That turned out to be a BIIIIGGG mistake. They didn't spray great but weren't horrible either, about like the thinned Model Color paints. Turns out however, that the way the residue dries quickly in the cup creates flakes and, the paint is not extremely soluble in the Iwata cleaner. As a result I am now extremely familiar with how to almost fully disassemble both airbrushes to get chunks out. I don't know if an extender would help this but I'm also not inclined to try too hard to find out. That's an hour+ of my life that I will never get back and although they were not verbalized, I have to admit that there were bad words running through my head...the good news is that both brushes are now back up and running just fine.
 
Sorry, I somehow missed the notification for your response. The setup is below. The hose comes from the regulator as you'd expect, connects to the H&S valve/QC combo, and then the brush plugs into that. If I take the male QC off of the brush, disconnect the valve from the air line, and plug the QC into the valve I can blow through it easily with my mouth regardless of the position of the knob. If I have things connected, changing the position of the knob makes zero discernible difference in the airflow (audibly) or the paintflow (visibly) through the brush.

I contacted Spraygunner as second time and reported that the second valve behaves the same as the first. Their response was that the valve wasn't supposed to shut the air all the way off but was simply to modulate the pressure. They also indicated that they had tested the second valve before they sent it and it seemed fine to them. It was a polite response but the behavior they describe is certainly different than what JackEB reported about how her H&S valve works. Unless I'm somehow using it wrong neither of the ones I have creates any significant pressure drop and they don't modulate a thing. I've used a lot of air lines/valves/quick connects in my life and I don't think I'm doing anything stupid here but on the other hand it wouldn't be the first time if I were....
That is so weird !!
I think @AndreZA has the H&S mac QD,
Andre, how does yours behave ? Maybe mine is the odd one out lol.... and having just written that I’ve remembered I bought two.. I wonder if both of mine are the same.

Andre did a review of 3 MAC valves and he’s mentioned that the H&S locks out (not falls out lol)
https://avwairbrushworks.wordpress.com/2016/08/24/shoot-out-mac-valves/

I know you’ve already spent s few $$ bit if you happen to have coupons at any of the stores nearby (or online for that matter) that stock the Grex- G-MAC QD then I would recommend that one as well.
much larger dial than the H&S
https://www.amazon.com/Grex-G-MAC-Valve-Connect-Coupler/dp/B002XQ2K84
 
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