dustin7837

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Sorry to start a new thread but I have a few specific questions for all yall.

I just got an Iwata HP-CS gravity fed airbrush and I bought a bunch of faskolor paints.

I have done painting before on full size cars with an HVLP spraygun, so I have a general idea of what I'm doing. But the first thing I noticed is that the cup is not removable on this airbrush.
Questions:

1. What do you guys do for cleanup between colors. ie: you are spraying 2 different body's or something and you want to switch colors. I have tried faskleen and i have tried water, but it seems hard to get all the paint out without taking the whole thing apart.

2. I have just been trying a few things on trasparancy's and pop bottles so that I don't wreck a body, but I'm not sure how much to thin the paint out and what Pressure I whould work with for this paint/airbrush combo. Whatever I do, the paint seems to be "grainy" or rough to the touch when it dries, and it looks very inconsistant like there are little spots where more paint came out, no matter how many light coats I do.

I have tried thinning with water and I have tried with windex, but neither seemed to help very much.

If anyone has any tips, hints or tricks that could help me, I would appreciate it very much!

Thanks!

xacdesigns

spray very light coats and let them dry between sprays. for detail work, I use a 50/50 water/windex mix to reduce fascolors with. I use the Iwata HP-C Hi-Line so I'll set my compressor to about 35-37psi and use the MAC valve for low pressure, detail spraying. I usually set the MAC valve so its, at a guess, around 10-12 psi, but I have the faskolor reduced so much that it still sprays. For detail, when I first start spraying, I cannot see anything, but it usually starts to show up around the 3-4 pass.

Also, I spray with the nozzle tip off the airbrush all the time. Just be careful as the needles are very easy to bend at the tip.

dustin7837

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Thanks for the reply!

Sorry to be a bit ignorant about airbrushes, but which is the MAC valve and how do you adjust it?

Thanks!!

xacdesigns

if you go to dixieart.com and look at the Iwata's site you can see it. Basically just a air control knob right below the paint cup.

dustin7837

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cool, thanks!
I tried it with the crown cap off and it helped a fair bit.

Still having issues with the paint being rather erratic. I have made sure the needle and seat are spotless, as well as the rest of the airbrush.
I have tried running from 25 psi to 50 psi.
and I have been thinning the faskolor at about 3:1 or 2:1 with water/windex mix.

It seems to look good on the outside of the lexan, so I guess I am set to try some bodies with it, But I wish I could get it smoother so that I could paint the outside of some stuff. For example, I would really like to do a falme job on one of my radios, but the paint turns out so rough, I'm afraid to try until I get it sorted out.

Appreciate teh help SaaBaaDoo, and If you or anyone else has anything else that would help me I would appreciate it too!

michelob78

Are you using the dual action correctly? You need to get air moving before you start a paint flow. You shoud start your movement by pushing down then pulling back to get a paint flow in a nice sweeping motion. I practice on plain paper..... try doing solid lines from thick lines to pencil thin lines, it will help you learn control. Also try some dots from large to small. Inside the Iwata box there should have been some tips to help get you painting decently.

On another note, I have painted for awhile.... I have never reduced faskolor paints, I spray them straight. For detail work I spray anywhere from <10lbs to 20lbs. And for large areas 30ish works. I use CO2, but that should not matter.

I also have the bottom feed Iwata (bcs) it seems easier to me, I just have several faskolor paint lids that allow you to screw them right onto their bottles. I line up several colors I need, when I switch I use some airbrush cleaner in a jar and spray it on paper untill the color is gone then pop in the new color. That was a reservation I had about getting the gravity feed model.

MaxxThrasher

The grainy texture is simply from it being water based paint. Your probably used to spraying solvent based paints, which are much smoother. As mentioned, since your spraying the inside the texture won't matter. It will look fine from the outside.

If your spray is still inconsistant, try reducing it even more.