I recently replaced my old Aztec air brush with a Paasche H. I have an air compressor on order, and while I’m waiting for it, I’m continuing to use the cans of Testors propellant that worked reasonably well (most of the time) with the old brush. Trouble is, they don’t work well with the new brush. Everything’s hooked up right and I’m getting air but little or no paint. Typically, I’ll get a weak flow initially, but the paint effect is stippled or splotchy, and within a minute or so I have no paint flow at all.
My initial diagnosis is that the cans don’t have the pressure to move the paint through this brush, and that the problem will resolve itself when I start using the compressor. Any other thoughts or suggestions out there?
Sounds like the air pressure isn’t enough to pull the paint up from the bottle. You could try making the paint a bit thinner while you’re waiting for the compressor.
I went to an airbrush class last weekend - they were demo’ng the Paasche H. I think they had the pressure up to 20+ something using the #1 for general painting of larger areas and then when they demo’d some really fine thin line painting techniques they up’d the pressure to approx 30. I think I remember they mixed the paint 50/50 with thinner.
While you are waiting for your $150.00 compressor go to your local autoparts store and buy one of those portable air tanks, a couple of connectors and Viola air pressure… works for me very well and no noise of the whop whop whop of the compressor
Ditto on the air tank, used on for many years so I wouldn’t have to drag my big Hitachi to the basement. Now I have a small Craftsman very similar to the Husky one from HD to use for airbrushing.
Bob K.
Thanks for the replies–I’ll wait for the proverbial “right tool” and stop messing about with those cans of gas. And thanks for the tip on the air cans. I’ve ordered a relatively small (1 gal.) compressor, so capacity, rather than weight, may turn out to be the primary concern.