Blending/fading effect with an airbrush

[Meph]

Meph, does that have an auto off/on feature?
Looks like a nice 1/4 hp diaphragm. Should work most of your airbrush issues.
If you get serious into t-shirts, you may have to upgrade.

Yup, it does, you dial in the desired PSI on the regulator, and the compressor shuts itself down when desired pressure is reached, once it drops below a certain level it starts up again. And with a 3 liter tank, you're yusually good for a few minutes of noiseless airbrushing. And as I mentioned it's not that loud actually. Waaay quieter than say, a blender or a hairdryer.

Oh, a safety valve also on that thing, so no accidentally blowing yourself up either, which is nice. ^^.

 

[Karnstein]

@airhead: Unless the store at ebay uses false data it is a 1/6hp single piston compressor. Data should be the same as mine:

1/6 HP / 1450 RPM / 3bar auto-start / 4 bar auto-stop / 20-23 liter per minute

PS: why wouldn't such a compressor not work for airbrushing t-shirts?

@meph: could you doublecheck that data? That would tell if yours is just an upgraded version of mine, using the same basic parts and only adding a 3l tank.

EDIT: If things should turn out the way that I need to replace the ebay stuff, I would opt for a sparmax 2000 and attach it to the 3L tank I ordered today. But we will see very soon, if that's necessary or not. ^^

 

[airhead]

...PS: why wouldn't such a compressor not work for airbrushing t-shirts?...

It will, but you are pushing it.
I generally shoot shirts at around 40-50 psi. (2.7-3.4 bar). That is up in the cycle range of your autoswitch.
and
the 30 lpm is right at .7 cfm which is where my production guns work at.

If you were doing lots of shirt shooting, you'll be spending time waiting on the compressor to catch up. Not where you want to be if you are trying to do some production.

***

If you shoot shirts, get some good textile paint (Createx, etc.). Put a carboard liner in the shirt. Sketch your design onto the shirt (I like watercolor pencils for this step). Shoot. If you have not painted the cardboard liner, you are not blowing paint all the way through the shirt and it will not last as well (ever have a cheap silkscreen peel off the shirt?).

 

[Einion]

So my last and final question for the next days is: Thinning paint?

We already talked a little bit about that topic, but I can't remember seeing a good number popping up. I tried both the 1p:2w ratio and the unthinned VMA paint and I have the slight feeling, that it may be still to thick for a transition approach based on multiple transparent layers.

The basic rule with dilution is thin enough. I know this isn't what we want to hear when starting out but numbers can often be a hindrance, not a help.

So I would strongly recommend you get used to judging by eye (and/or by how it sprays) since a specific dilution ratio that one person uses can't be guaranteed to give the same results even using the same colour from the same range - on the paint side of things to begin with, they may have come from the factory at slightly different consistencies; even if they were identical though if the other person leaves the cap off more or less than you his paint is likely to have dried up more or less than yours. On top of that two airbrushes are probably set slightly differently, the pressure might not be quite the same, humidity of the air could be factor too etc. etc.

By all means start with ratios that you've read but expect to have to vary to suit your personal preferences or conditions.

See more in this recent thread:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?38341-Another-dum-noob-airbrush-question-P

Einion