Hi & Air Brushing

[Pilot Pete]

Hello all.
I'm now back from the US, I'm in Norwich at the moment and I have my final flight test this week.
Then it's job hunting time and another Ultima of course

I've brough a little run around and it's got a dent on it I was thinking about sorting it out and having ago at re spraying it, just touch up not re spraying the whole car.

I was thinking it might be good pratice, for fitting the luvers and removing stone chips from the front clip.

Has anyone here do any air brushing and can give me advice as to what to buy.

[738 driver]

Pete, if you have or can access a small compressor then you would be better off with a 'gravity fed' standard size spray-gun. Even the cheap ones off e-bay or from Machine Mart will be fine (£20-30). You can do spot repairs of only 75mm diameter, finished size, with one of those and also use to repaint the whole clip etc at a later date. The 'gravity feed' is the key, the paint container is on top of the gun instead of below (suction feed) and therefore presents the material to the tip immediately you squeeeze the trigger. Hence very fine, small areas can be covered and you wont be restricted to only using over-thinned, poor quality materials, as you would the airbrush route.
Air brushes are great and to witness an expert at work is quite an eye-opener but they do have limitations on the volume and type/viscosity of materials they will pass. Current vehicle refinishing materials are not really designed for them.
Good luck with the test, we all hate them!

[ezakimak]

best of luck with the flight test, its one thing id love to do at some stage.

also thanks for the info on the guns, if i fine one like that at the right price, ill be sure to pick it up. could save me some trouble in the future. ive got to of the suction type. was spraying some furniture in the garuage after work this winter. problem was that once i finaly got it sorted it was to cold for the paint to dry properly. if your doing large areas paint drying time and temperature needs to be considered.

ryan

[Pilot Pete]

Thanks guys.
I've still not had my IR test due to all the fog last week, it's due on Thursday hopefully.

So a gravity fed one it is then, what size
1.3 mm
0.8 mm...

What do the sizes mean?

[738 driver]

Its the tip diameter, used to determine the guns main use (the type of material that it will generally apply). Most pro painters have two or three guns going at once and all go into the oven with them, primers with larger tips, a colour gun with a medium and then a lacquer gun with a med/fine tip.
I'd stick with the 1.3 ish, with practise what will do more will do less. Finer tip = finer material/finish but you can play with the pressure/fan adjusters on the gun to achieve the same finish and again this is much easier when a gravity pot is employed. Also as most modern materials are medium to high solids the larger tip will cope best, allowing you to apply high build primers right through to blend out thinner with consistent results. The same one can be used if you want to fully respray your Ultima! Another plus is that when gun's are used infrequently they can be very prone to minor tip blockages resulting in awful spray patterns, a larger tip is much easier to clean fully.
Waiting for your IR test is a nightmare, I waited 9 winter weeks back in 2003/04 till the examiner said thats it we are definitely going today!
Recurrant Sim on tues/wed for me......hate it.
Best of luck with yours.