airbrushes

Airbrushes

By Don Johnson

Basic airbrush information dealing with airbrushs made by the leading airbrush manufactures Badger, Paasche, Iwata.

Airbrushs can be either internal or external mix, single action or double (dual) action.

SOME AIRBRUSH DEFINITIONS

EXTERNAL MIX - Combine air and paint after they exit the tip of the airbrush. Paint volume is controlled by a knob on the airbrush.

INTERNAL MIX - Combine air and paint inside the airbrush (tip actually) .

ACTION - How the trigger is used to control the airbrush functions which affect the spray pattern of the airbrush.

SINGLE ACTION - Pushing down on the trigger gives you both paint and air. To stop paint being applied (flowing) just let up on the trigger. Amount of paint applied is controlled by a separate knob (pictured below). Single action airbrushs operates much the same as a can of spray paint but with the added ability of being able to adjust the amount of paint applied and the air pressure. To control the amount of paint the single action will apply when you push down on the trigger you would adjust the paint volume adjustment knob. Turning the knob clock wise decreases paint flow and turning it counter clockwise increases paint flow. Which means during the painting process to adjust paint flow you must stop and adjust the paint volume knob to increase or decrease paint flow. Very slow process painting anything in this manner, very limiting.

The air hose would just screw onto the post marked air hose connection in the picture below. The other end of the air hose screws onto the compressor.

You can check out my short video on different airbrush types below. Presented by Airbrush Technique Magazine

SINGLE ACTION AIRBRUSH

DOUBLE ACTION - Pushing down on the trigger gives you air, pulling back on the trigger gives you paint. The amount of air used should be controlled at your compressor setting not by feathering the amount of pressure you apply by pressing down on the trigger. Amount of paint applied is determined by how far back you pull the trigger.( pictured below) This gives you ability to paint non stop and increase or decrease paint flow simply by how much you pull the trigger back or push it forward. Giving you much more control during the painting process than the single action airbrush. Double action or dual action is great for applications where constant adjustments of spray widths and volume are required. The spray pattern as with a single action airbrush is determined by how far from the painting surface you are. The closer you are the smaller the spray pattern the further away you are from the painting surface the larger the spray pattern will be.

Check out the basic airbrush lessons on www.howtoairbrush.com .

DOUBLE OR DUAL ACTION AIRBRUSH