Vladimir
Detail Decepticon!
From my first days of airbrushing I started to think what to improve in the tool, not because I new exactly what and how to improve in the airbrushes, but just for the simple reason of having chinese airbrushes that just needed improvements for normal work of the tool because of their poor quality.
So, I started to do some modifications that would make the tool’s performance better.
After I bought my first japanese airbrushes I realized, that to these well made tools it was also possible to make the improvements and the modification was making better performance of the airbrush, thus more convenient work.
The first thing I ever did to the AB was making the needle better.
Chinese needles have very rough surface for the reason they do not give at the factory to the needle final sanding with very fine grits abrasives, not saying polishing the needle’s surface.
Japanese needles are better, but not the best. In the booklet of micron series airbrushes is stated that needles are polished. I don’t know what and where they polish there, but polished needles look totally different to those microns come with from the factory. So I polish all needles no matter if they chinese or japanese.
I’ll cover my way of polishing maybe even in special thread for that. Anyway, the post will appear here in this thread later for the reason I need to take SBS photos of the processing. All my needles installed in the ABs are polished, so I have to treat new one. My way has some special features, I think you all would be interested to see it.
Then, after some time of ABing I realized that metal top of the trigger makes my finger ache after allday long freehand work. So my thought went towards finding the solution on this problem. I came up with making the trigger pads made with the polyurethane. The process I’ve covered in this thread https://www.airbrushforum.org/threads/diy-ab-trigger-pad.12859/
The pads have totally solved the issue with finger pain and fatigue, but they definitely made work more convenient, besides have improved the control over spraying.
How the pads looked at the beginning of the journey you could see in that thread. I’ve come to another design for the time that suits me greatly. Maybe I’ll make some other modifications in future. I like experimenting. Now my trigger pads look another way compared to those in the beginning.
Another good improvement that can be made is modified needle protection. Long ago I’ve read @AndreZA thread https://www.airbrushforum.org/threads/needle-cap-mod.6833/
and wanted to do that since then. Not long ago I finished my first attempts in this kind of modification. These are just trials to understand what type would fit my needs best. I’ve come up with two major types of the protection. One is for detail ABs 0,18 and 0,2mm nozzle setups, another one is for bigger air caps with 0,3mm or bigger nozzles.
The result you can see below.
Even at this point I’m pleased with the outcome. I think now how to make the parts more precise.
One thing I don’t like is that making this kind of the protection requires tons of manual work and time. But the results are worth having that.
At some point of the improvements an idea on modification of the air caps came. I’ve come up with two types of the mods. One is to fit new design of the needle protection I got, another one is totally different. You can see the results.
I like both new designs. One with the needle protection looks better than the stock one and can be cleaned within seconds with the piece of the napkin (cloth, whatever) soaked with the thinner. Try to do that fast to stock ones!
Another type is designed specially for the close up detail freehand work. I work on the details while painting always with the needle protection off, but also worked with the protection off for backgrounds also. In both cases I need to remove the tip dry.
For background painting I can now use custom made needle protection, so the problem with normal tip dry removal is solved.
Another story is detail work. Here we need constant access to the needle for tip dry removing. What I’ve came up with gives best possible shape for tip dry removal that can be made. Besides this shape of the air cap gives better vision over the close up detail work. This type also gives second fast cleaning.
I’ve done this to all of the air caps starting with the detail ABs 0,18 and 0,2mm and above. It works just great for all the types of the caps.
These photos are good illustration of how easy the tip dry removal can be and how the look over work could change after some minute improvement of the parts.
I’ve mentioned in other thread how well the new needles we expect to appear on the AB market could fit to this detail work air caps. This would be real sweet couple to have in the airbrush.
Great features we have with this detail work air cap, but big disadvantage (especially for newcomers in ABing) is here – unprotected AB needle that can be easily bent. Having the needle that is not bent is the solution. It moves the airbrush to the next level of use.
I haven’t done good photo-session for the things because of the lack of the time, but what’s done is pretty enough for understanding the concept. Better photos will appear here later
That’s just the beginning. I work on other things now, besides there are tons of the ideas in my mind. So, to be continued...
So, I started to do some modifications that would make the tool’s performance better.
After I bought my first japanese airbrushes I realized, that to these well made tools it was also possible to make the improvements and the modification was making better performance of the airbrush, thus more convenient work.
The first thing I ever did to the AB was making the needle better.
Chinese needles have very rough surface for the reason they do not give at the factory to the needle final sanding with very fine grits abrasives, not saying polishing the needle’s surface.
Japanese needles are better, but not the best. In the booklet of micron series airbrushes is stated that needles are polished. I don’t know what and where they polish there, but polished needles look totally different to those microns come with from the factory. So I polish all needles no matter if they chinese or japanese.
I’ll cover my way of polishing maybe even in special thread for that. Anyway, the post will appear here in this thread later for the reason I need to take SBS photos of the processing. All my needles installed in the ABs are polished, so I have to treat new one. My way has some special features, I think you all would be interested to see it.
Then, after some time of ABing I realized that metal top of the trigger makes my finger ache after allday long freehand work. So my thought went towards finding the solution on this problem. I came up with making the trigger pads made with the polyurethane. The process I’ve covered in this thread https://www.airbrushforum.org/threads/diy-ab-trigger-pad.12859/
The pads have totally solved the issue with finger pain and fatigue, but they definitely made work more convenient, besides have improved the control over spraying.
How the pads looked at the beginning of the journey you could see in that thread. I’ve come to another design for the time that suits me greatly. Maybe I’ll make some other modifications in future. I like experimenting. Now my trigger pads look another way compared to those in the beginning.
Another good improvement that can be made is modified needle protection. Long ago I’ve read @AndreZA thread https://www.airbrushforum.org/threads/needle-cap-mod.6833/
and wanted to do that since then. Not long ago I finished my first attempts in this kind of modification. These are just trials to understand what type would fit my needs best. I’ve come up with two major types of the protection. One is for detail ABs 0,18 and 0,2mm nozzle setups, another one is for bigger air caps with 0,3mm or bigger nozzles.
The result you can see below.
Even at this point I’m pleased with the outcome. I think now how to make the parts more precise.
One thing I don’t like is that making this kind of the protection requires tons of manual work and time. But the results are worth having that.
At some point of the improvements an idea on modification of the air caps came. I’ve come up with two types of the mods. One is to fit new design of the needle protection I got, another one is totally different. You can see the results.
I like both new designs. One with the needle protection looks better than the stock one and can be cleaned within seconds with the piece of the napkin (cloth, whatever) soaked with the thinner. Try to do that fast to stock ones!
Another type is designed specially for the close up detail freehand work. I work on the details while painting always with the needle protection off, but also worked with the protection off for backgrounds also. In both cases I need to remove the tip dry.
For background painting I can now use custom made needle protection, so the problem with normal tip dry removal is solved.
Another story is detail work. Here we need constant access to the needle for tip dry removing. What I’ve came up with gives best possible shape for tip dry removal that can be made. Besides this shape of the air cap gives better vision over the close up detail work. This type also gives second fast cleaning.
I’ve done this to all of the air caps starting with the detail ABs 0,18 and 0,2mm and above. It works just great for all the types of the caps.
These photos are good illustration of how easy the tip dry removal can be and how the look over work could change after some minute improvement of the parts.
I’ve mentioned in other thread how well the new needles we expect to appear on the AB market could fit to this detail work air caps. This would be real sweet couple to have in the airbrush.
Great features we have with this detail work air cap, but big disadvantage (especially for newcomers in ABing) is here – unprotected AB needle that can be easily bent. Having the needle that is not bent is the solution. It moves the airbrush to the next level of use.
I haven’t done good photo-session for the things because of the lack of the time, but what’s done is pretty enough for understanding the concept. Better photos will appear here later
That’s just the beginning. I work on other things now, besides there are tons of the ideas in my mind. So, to be continued...