Airbrushing, eh?

• March 29th, 2006 • • airbrushing, supplies •

I’ve always wanted to try out airbrushing (who hasn’t!). Fortunately, Michael’s Mother’s studio happened to have two hanging around. Before I go any further I will point out that I know nothing about airbrushes, except that one adds air and paint, and magically the combination of the two makes nifty effects on surfaces.

Model number one seems to be (as near as I can figure) a fairly generic model: Thayer & Chandler No. 46512 A. I took the durn thing apart to clean it as 1) it had a handy exploded view in the instructions and 2) the container it had been sitting in for 15+ years was filled with some sort of foam that disintegrated upon being touched and had corroded the sides of the brush a bit. As my technical pen cleaning tutorial shows, I loooooove taking apart stuff like this. Very enjoyable. Somehow I managed to get all the parts back into the pen in working order after cleaning them with warm water and BKF.

Model number two is a Paasche Double Action AB. It looks more complicated than the T&C model; further research online yielded the fact that this is considered one of if not the top o’ the line model for airbrushes. One of the many airbrush books in the studio refused to even discuss the Paasche AB, as it was just not for beginners! At a whopping $250(!) I would venture to say that beginners would in fact NOT use that brush. (Heck, even if I was a pro I don’t know if I could invest that kind of cabbage.) Good grief! Talk about a treasure!

Sadly, there was no compressor to accompany the finds. Michael and I stopped by my arch-nemisis Hobby Lobby on the way home to price the compressors. I found the prices strange: the cheapest compressor was $90. The ol’ hardware store has yielded compressors at reasonable prices, so, what’s the difference? As far as I know, most “standard” compressors can range from 20psi to enough to fill my tires. Obviously this warrants further investigation. Compressed air has always made me nervous ever since a bike tire blew up in my face when I was 12 due to overfilling using Dad’s SpeedyAire. Considering I’ve run across all sorts of moisture scrubbers, hose adapters and fittings, it seems feasible to hook up the airbrush to a standard air compressor I can use not only for running the fancy-schmancy Paasche, but fill the car tires, run the industrial air brush gun Dad gave me and use a nail gun. That’s right. I want it all. All from one machine. Why can’t the hardware store be open past midnight?

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