Nilrem

Hi I've been using some frisket masking film (gloss) which works pretty well, but seems to leave a slightly shiny tack sort of thing on the models after it's been pealed off. I thought it was due to how long I'd left it on as the first couple of times it ended up staying on for a couple of days, but I did it over the weekend and had it on for about 12 hours and it still did it. Is this fairly normal, it's going onto an acrylic airbrused paint (games workshop thinned with vallejo thinners), and does anyone have any ideas for the best way to remove the shine, or if there is another film that won't leave it? (apart from the shine/tack i'm reasonably happy with the film, except that it has trouble with tight bends). Cheers

Hi, thanks for the replies, and apologies for not posting back earlier It's looking good on the "will it work" front, but I may have to put back the purchase a bit, as I'm going to have to upgrade my PC first.

Hi I'm probably going to be doing quite a lot of work with the airbrush in the nearish future, and I've been looking at the likes of the Craft Robo Silhouette to assist in cutting out masking etc. I've got a bunch of models that I want to do various types of camo on, and anything that makes it easier is a bonus (last time I did camo masks it took me hours to cut them out neatly, time which could have been better spent on the actual painting or assembly). I was wondering if anyone had any experience with using something like the craft robo (it looks like the current model is the silhouette) to cut frisk and the like for camo masks, and general templates/masks? Cheers

A quick update. I picked up my online order in our local (MK) store today and out of the 27 paints I bought, 16 were in the new pots (easily identifiable as they have the "fin" on the hinge), my brother bought 40, of which 31 were new style pots, so it looks like for the non glaze pots, there is a ~25% chance of it being in an older pot at a guess from our small sample. Now to get out to the garage and actually undercoat some models.

I think the new paints are being made in Manchester or Birmingham, the guy in store mentioned they'd spent a few years working on the range to get it right. I've ended up with an order for 30 or so paints to be delivered to my local store on Saturday, and my brother has about 40 ordered as apparently the stores won't be getting many in to begin with (the guy in our local store said something about them only getting about 6 of most in, and 12 of the more popular colours from memory).

I was actually in the local GW store this morning, and to say I'm impressed with the new paints is a mild understatement. They appear to be much better than the old ones in terms of coverage - the new "base" (replacement for foundation) white goes over black smoothly and almost fully in one coat straight from the pot, which bodes well for the performance if thinned slightly (it's not a brilliant white so you can highlight it). From what the guy in the store was saying, they were painting Mentor legions (mainly white) starting with a black undercoat to practice with the paints and get an idea of how they cover. The Red base coat goes on just as well, which is a massive improvement over some of the older reds, I just hope it holds true for the yellows, and greys, as I've always found GW yellows to be an utter nightmare to do, and reds/oranges/greys often only slightly better (at least for the lighter colours) The Dry paints look to be great for drybrushing, and much easier to use than old method, but you need to make sure you only get a bit on the brush as it seems to go a long way. The textured paints for basing look like they'll be fun to play with, and probably a massive time saver (if slightly expensive) for horde armies. The pots look the same as the old in the pictures, but have been redesigned, the main change is a taller lip going into the cap to provide a better airtight seal*, and they've got a little bit that means the cap stays open when you want it to, but the cap also seems to have a longer tail, so it shouldn't drip over the rim of the pot as much. Apparently they've also gone back to the pull tab on the pots, so they are sealed much more tightly whilst in the store. They've also, I think gone back to a slightly rubbery lid for some of the paints (the tints I think), to again make a better seal on the paints that are most probe to drying out. For the first time in years I think I'll probably be using GW paints without worrying that they'll dry out within months, which is nice to be able to say. However, apparently for a while the new paints may be coming in the older style pots at times - I get the impression they may have a large supply of old pots to use up. If I had the cash to spare, I'd probably buy the LE case with all the paints, as I've got A Tyranid army (bought last year at Campaign), an Empire Army (bought about 2-3 years ago), and a Skaven Army (this year) to paint, so would probably get the use out of it. *Half my GW paints from the current, soon to be discontinued range have dried out within 6-12 months, even when stored in an airtight box (and some of my ancient flip rubber topped ones from 15+ years ago are much more usable than paints that are 12 months old)..

This is a question I was going to ask, as I've noticed if we leave our brush for a few days it "locks" a bit due to paint around the trigger no matter how hard we try to keep it clean I think I've got a spare needle seal, otherwise I'll probably see you at Hamex and pick up a pack then Paul (I'm not likely to be doing much with the brush in the next few weeks).

I really like the looks of that stand, will they take GW paint pots? (approx 33-35mm depending on if it's an older hex pot, or the newer round ones).

Those cleaning videos came in very handy when I first started (I pretty much follow the same method). One little thing I have found is tattooist ink caps are great for mixing small amounts of acrylic paint (and the ones with a lid can store mixed paints for a few days), and can be got cheap as they're meant to be disposable, but are easy enough to clean of acrylic paints.

A quick update We tried the brush out again over the weekend, and with the retarder added to the mix it seemed much better I think brother was using a mix of about 10 parts Vallejo AB black, 2 parts thinner and 1 part retarder which seemed to give good results.

Hi Thanks for the replies again It turns out brother has a bottle of Vallejo Retarder medium 70.597 (is that the right one it looks almost like a gel in the bottle?) that he picked up at some time, so he's going to try adding a drop of that to the paint (I'll add a large bottle to my next order from you, as he's looking at an infinity head for easy access to the tip with cotton buds, and getting a little closer to the models ). Is the nozzle safe in the Ultrasonic bath? I ask I've been avoiding putting it in the bath, instead using liquid reamer on it as I think I read a suggestion that the bath could damage the tip of the nozzle (although given the price of the H&S nozzles they aren't bad to replace if that happens). Also is it safe to put the parts in a "hot" bath? The model I've got can heat the fluid to about 60c, which seems to help a lot with other jobs as the heat tends to loosen muck/paint. I'll confess that despite a few teething problems as we learn to do more with the brush, I'm loving it and it's interesting learning how to deal with different things (even with cleaning & experimenting it's saving many hours of hand painting).

Hi Thanks for the reply I think he tried turning the airflow down, but ran into problems with the paint flow (IE the paint would stop), by spotting i think he means spitting. He's apparently registered so should be asking his own questions soon, rather than relying on me to relay stuff In the meantime I gave the brush another clean, this time taking the needle seal* out (the one hidden in the body of the brush, that is held in place by a screw/nut) as the needle has sometimes been a bit sticky when inserting it, and that was very mucky, the back side of the screw that holds it in place was caked in dried paint (going by the colour, it was probably from one of our first attempts to use the brush over 12 months ago), but not at all visible without removing it. So I've given that a clean, which makes me wonder if specks of paint have been getting moved from around the seal when I've put the clean needle back into the brush causing problems (IE if bits of that paint have been getting pushed into the nozzle after cleaning) *I think it's part 123450 on the Evo

Hi My younger brother is starting to get into this airbrush malarkey by preshading models that he's then going to do a top coat over with the AB (he's had a play with base coating, and undercoating with the AB and liked the results). The problem is he's finding that when trying to do finer lines in close it's spotting and/or spidering, I've not noticed much/any real spotting when I've been using the brush for base coating myself, nor when using the Vallejo grey undercoat, but I've not tried any detail/close in work. We're using a Harder and Steenbeck Evolution 2in1 FPS with the 0.4mm needle/nozzle fitted, and he's tried various paint/thinner ratios. With Vallejo Airbursh black on it's own the needle was blocking constantly, but I think giving a reasonable line between blockages (about every minute or so). With Vallejo AB Black and Vallejo thinner at a 1:1 ratio it was spotting. With Vallejo AB black and Thinner at a 1:3 ratio it was both spotting and spidering. He's tried various airflow and paint flow settings, but doesn't seem able to get a good clean spray that isn't isn't spotting/spidering or blocking up. The brush has been thoroughly cleaned several times, including using liquid reamer on the nozzle (I can't see any muck with a magnifying glass, on the needle, nozzle etc), nor can I see or feel any needle damage. I'm going to give the needle/nozzle etc a soak in warm Vallejo thinner though and the needle/end cap (but not nozzle) a go in an ultrasonic bath see if that makes a difference next time we try the brush. Are there any suggestions for what else could be tried? I'm wondering if the thinner mix and the 0.2mm needle might be the next thing to try, but I'm not sure as I'm pretty new to using the airbrush myself, and I'm only just getting the hang of using it for base coats/larger area spraying with consistent results.

They are great, I got some from Paul at little cars when I bought my compressor and Airbush from him, and they save a lot of fiddling, especially if you're swapping between brushes in a hurry.

The A300d is a lovely extractor/booth I bought one from Paul at little cars last year and absolutely love it, it makes a huge difference when spraying both with rattle cans and the airbrush, we always used to have a layer of (black) dust after undercoating with the halfords spray cans, since we got the extractor i don't think there has been any such dust settling I had to do some undercoating without the booth the other day and i'd forgotten how bad it was, as the extractor seems to clear the air pretty much as soon as you spray About the only problem I had with ours was fitting the vent into the back of the garage.

Congratulations, the Evo is a lovely brush,, I bought one from Paul last year and although I'm very much a beginner at airbrushing I've been really pleased with the results (especially since most of the work i've done so far has been with GW paints which aren't really intended for airbrushing).

As has been said about 60-80% water seems to work - at least when the paints haven't had a chance to dry out much. I'm in the process of doing some Tau stuff (and my brother has been doing marines and eldar) and we've found about two drops water to 1 drop citadel colour seems to work fairly well on average, but it can go on a little wet. I've also found that Vallejo thinner (I think Paul at little cars sells it) works well, and you can use the half litre bottle (at about £7 a bottle) rather than the small dropper bottles (at about £1.70 for 17ml) as they are the same thing. When I tried alcohol with the Citadel paints it didn't work out at all, so I just use thinner/water.

That looks really awesome It makes the Tachikoma (titchykoma?) look really small in comparison.

Troffa, I think what you're describing may be the mark 6? armour helmets (beaky helmets), I think they are available in plastic now but as part of a sprue that is mainly mark 7 helmets. I'm not sure what the other differences in the body armour are, so it may be possible to (if you wanted) pick up a pack of the plastic models, then buy the mark 6 helmets from one of the bits order places (one of the nicer things GW have been doing is including a wider variety of heads/options with most sprue's, normally it seems in a box of 12 you get about 16 heads etc). Snipersmudge, unfortunately as GW are pretty careful about their IP* about the only place I know that sells larger marine versions is Forgeworld as already mentioned**, although I've got a feeling there may be some designs/scaled up diagrams to make larger versions that are pure display models if you don't mind scratch building. *Not a bad thing, but it can be rather annoying at times (it would be nice if they partnered up with other companies a bit more to do more of what they can't do in house), pretty much everything apart from the main models/rule books tend to be limited runs in some form or another, including some of the FW stuff by the looks of it. **They used to do several, but I can't find one on their site anymore.

I like how you've done the outlet in the wood to fit in the partially open sliding door (It's not something I would have thought to do) If you're after more lighting for it, if you can get a suitable floor standing lamp (or table mounted one), I've found Phillips daylight bulbs quite good (homebase sell the 100 watt equivalent for about £3.50), might work well at giving a good light without getting too hot. We bought one of the same extractors from Little Cars a couple of weeks ago (my dad insisted on paying for it), which we've put in the "spray corner" of the garage, and run the hose out through the back using one of the flappy tumble dryer outlets. What we ended up doing for lighting (probably wouldn't be as easy for you to do in a house*) was to fit a 4 foot tube above and about 3-4 foot in front of the booth, and another one above and just behind it, both with GE daylight tubes (£4.50 from B&Q for the tubes). When we get the corner finished we're probably going to use the Phillips bulbs in normal holder to help with any dead/shadowed areas. The extractor is wonderfully effective - we've only really used it for undercoating models so so (very little airbrush use), but where we always used to have a sort of stinking mist in the air after doing a few squads of models, with the extractor on I can take my respirator straight off after spraying and just have a faint whiff of the propellant, with no particulates visible *I know I wouldn't get away with, although possibly the use of a lighting bar to mount the light on (and collapse it down when not in use?) would work.

Looking at some of these has given me some ideas (especially Mike's spray area as i've just got a graphic air one from little cars, but the cover it came with is a bit restricting). I love how organised Mike and Hacker's areas seem to be, Mike's is much tidier than our garage, which we took some pains to try and get organised in terms of storage/working areas when we set it up. That desk and the site in the op has some interesting items, some of which should be fairly easy to make*, and very useful Julien, I know the feeling, I've got about 12 foot of desk space in my bedroom, of which I actually use about 2 foot as that's where i'm sitting and the rest of the desk is filled with things like the scanner/dvd player/tv/books *Especially as for some of them it should be possible to adapt some of the templates/designs for other units I've got the plans for (the really useful storage units should be a cinch to make).

Thanks for posting that, that site looks really handy Younger brothers response to it was also rather enthusiastic (he's forever trying to work out how to do colours he's seen in pictures). Duly bookmarked.

Aye Paul, I guess the parts diagram just scared me a bit Although I should have learned that lesson with the Iwata, what looks complicated in the diagram isn't so much so in the metal. P.S. Thanks for the fast replies to the emails over the past few days Adrian

A bit late, but possibly one of the guys at Macross World might have a few leads on tracking down the kit, as they're pretty dedicated to the series They're a pretty friendly bunch normally (much like seems to be the case here), and it looks like several of the guys might have them (i'm not sure if it's the same kit but one of them was selling a resin VF4 around the sart of the year for example).

Thanks for taking the time do do those videos That's been very helpful, and makes it look a lot easier than I feared a H&S might be to clean from looking at the parts diagrams (I'm looking at getting one next week).