Master and Apprentice

Its been quite some time since my last post. Between a well deserved two week vacation, and five days away on a job trip, I lost almost a full month. At least while I was on holiday I was able to go back to my roots to one of the first people who taught me some of the tricks to modeling.

I first met Dennis when I was about ten years old. I was trying to put together model airplanes. I remember trying to put together a 1/72 scale Revell F-100 Super Saber from Revell. I don't believe I was all that successful. I was trying to use Testers Polystyrene glue. That was the glue to use back in the day, yes its "old school". There wasn't any of this CE super glue, Zap a gap with Zip Kicker, accelerator stuff like things. Old polystyrene glue would take what seemed like hours to harden. There were like 48 different steps and would take the average person a month to complete a model. If you really wanted to do it right and paint the cockpit, paint the inside of the engine, or air intakes, you could easily make one kit a two month venture. If you wanted to do a tank, it could easily stretch to three. Dennis' page is linked below:

http://wwi.priswell.com/index.htm

Also back in the day there wasn't, or at least I wasn't aware of, any water color paints you could use for plastic modeling. Water colors were for painters, for school projects, or for "serious art-tists" who painted on canvas. Again until I knew any better, Tester's Paint was the only paint I was familiar with. This was not a good thing since at that time, Tester's was an oil based paint. As many housewives and mothers could emit a scream that could shatter glass when they found out that oil base paint had been knocked over and had dripped onto the, their carpet. If you were fast enough with the paint thinner, if the carpet was dark enough, and the paint was the right color, you could get by with little or no stain. Sometimes even lacquer thinner couldn't help the spill, and grounding would take place.

Anywho I was able to find Dennis at one of the local hobby stores he teaches at. As always I make it a point when I am at home to have a chat with Dennis about the models I have been making and some of the issues I have been having. Don't get me wrong. There have been some cool techniques I have picked up from different places around the country but as always I am constantly humbled whenever I talk to Dennis.

In earlier posts I have talked about using an airbrush to speed up base painting models. This has been very effective, and saved a ton of time. However with the ten dollar special airbrush from Harbor Freight it is great for blasting out tons of paint for what I need it to do. Problem is you either get quality or quantity. So... this leads me to the first of a few issues: what airbrush do I use for quality painting, ie finer nozzle? I also I am noticing allot of clogging when I do use my cost effective airbrush. Again I am using the GW Mechrite Red paint... which is THE worst paint to base with. Its heavy, gums up rapidly, and most of all kinda expensive, but dam I like the color. Also most of all with the gumming up process my paint jars that feed the airbrush are starting to get caked up with residue. I am starting to have issues galore. Dennis to the rescue, and the humbling is about to begin:

First Dennis re-introduces me to lacquer thinner. OK O Great Tactician (me), remember lacquer thinner? Yup, sure do... works well with miliputt for filling in gaps when its a paste... Remember how it will basically eat through just about anything given time? Yup... it will eat right through polystyrene kits if given time.... So you know it will remove paint from polystyrene kits and paint on pewter parts? Yup remember on some tanks that had some metal parts on the chassis. So ya think it might work on other metal parts....? That was the first time of many times my hand meet my forehead at a high rate of speed, and the following dumb feeling. OK so now I know how to get all of the gook off of my airbrush. All of my parts received a generous three hour soaking in a metal container. With an old toothbrush I was able to rinse the paint off of the jars with hot water. I soon had two sparkling jars. This time when I pushed a dressing pin through the air nozzle it came out allot further and pushed out allot more gummed up paint.

Next about thinning the sludge I have been forcing through my airbrush. Ninety-One (not JD or JB) percent alcohol is not only used for cleaning but can also be used as a thinning agent. This one I didn't know. Household Windex is also an excellent cleaning agent(and its cheap). When I was painting with the airbrush I added about two to three drops of Windex to help thin out the paint before I added the water. I did notice a difference. I did feel that the paint did come out smoother. And on that note.......

I didn't realize that there is a certain pitch that the airbrush will emit when I get the right thickness of paint to where I want it. Again Dennis had a story of how one of his student was telling him his mix was off by the sound of the airbrush was making when he was doing a couple of test strokes. I was only using one sense when I was using the airbrush, not two or I would have noticed this difference sooner. It doesn't sound like much but look at it this way: Too much paint and you lose all of the detail of the model. Too little and you will have clumps of watery paint all over your models, yes it will look like someone spit on it, hence the term: spitting. When you have to clean up paint on models, its a waste of both time and money. Again there was a resounding "Duh" when Dennis told me this. I knew that there was a certain mix or recipe I followed when I made my initial batch of paint. I knew that when I brushed a Devilfish I had to have so much paint in the jar, and so much water. I just never though to listen to how the brush was singing. I wanted my brush to sound like Jewel, not Roseanne Barr.

So now back to something else I have addressed before. Use the right tool for the right job. The original airbrush I bought was crap, it was made to be run off of canned propellant. Which lead me to the ten dollar work horse I am using to base the army. Again I cant give this ten dollar brush enough props. So if I have a shot gun, I now need a sniper rifle.

Dennis showed me the difference between a gravity fed airbrush and suction based airbrush. I was taken back of how easily the gravity fed airbrush broke down for cleaning. I also loved the fact that it looked like it had a much easier feed system for shooting paint onto a model. The needle was much finer as I saw how easy enough it was to write a name or do a certain style of camouflage, which... game me a few ideas.

http://goflyheli.com/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=124

I am convinced that the females of our species have been doing hobbies or crafting just as much as we men have for quite some time. Intuitions have sprung up to further these crafts or hobbies. Michales is one of these fine places that I have discovered with the travels of my wife that has, quite frankly, allot of really cool modeling stuff!

Michales carries airbrushes, not the el cheapo, second rate brush, but the top of the line Badger brand of air brushes. Badger was the original type of airbrush my Dad had that almost drove him to pull out his hair. Again the Apprentice asked Dennis the Master; how about the Badger line of airbrushes? Dennis said that Badger was one that was tried, tested and proven, and been around for a heck of a long time. However looking that these brushes, they aren't cheap. So what to do? Enter the Internet....

Michales like many other places has Email lists for preferred customers. These can often be a bad terrible thing where stores sell your address for ten cents to someone else. However, they like other places send out coupons. Oh yes... some times coupons for as much as forty percent off of certain items. Doing the mental math are we? Yes so that $120.00 Badger Airbrush, is now under $75.00!!! That's a heck of a deal no matter how you look at it. That means you can celebrate your brand new top of the line, quality (sniper rifle) airbrush with a fine dinner with your spouse.

Thanks Dennis