I am late picking up on this thread about airbrushing, but in view of dr4gOnfly’s kind compliment above, I thought I would add a few general comments about starting airbrushing and my experience.
I started with a basic Badger airbrush kit with gas canister from Halfords and had little success with it. Following a recommendation, I then bought a better quality Evolution airbrush (top loading gravity fed) plus small compressor. As has been mentioned in postings above, there is plenty of info & clips on the internet. There are also one or two DVD’s such as ‘How to begin Airbrushing’ by Peter Lind and ‘Introduction to Airbrush’ by Debbie Eastlack, I decided I would make better progress with a little tuition. Even re-assembling the airbrush after essential thorough cleaning is not that easy.
There seems very little practical tuition available in UK, but I attended a 2 day weekend course run fairly locally by Artimagination Airbrush school in Gloucestershire. I found this introductory course excellent and would recommend it. They also sell all equipment and paints relating to airbrushing and will give advice over the phone. ‘everythingairbrush.com’ also has a good range of stuff.
Readymade acrylic airbrush paints are much the easiest, no fussing around trying to get the right consistency by mixing - the airbrush blocks up very easily if not adequately thinned. Although a set of airbrush colours may seem expensive to buy, if you have a gravity fed airbrush then you only need a few drops at a time, so the paints normally last for years. For woodturners, I suggest best to go for a set of transparent colour paints plus separate opaque black and white. You can add metallics, irridescents etc later, if you so wish.
Trial and error will get you a long way with the airbrush, but using the info and help out there will speed your progress and competency.
