Paint, Regulator, misc. questions

Wrote down a few of my questions instead of starting a new post everytime I think of something. About to buy my first airbrush and was kind of curious about:

1. Looking at getting an Iwata HP-BCS. For practicing on newsprint and working my way up to t-shirts, I have been looking at the Createx Wicked Colors. Although I have looked at the websites and done a search on regular Createx, Dr. PH Martins and Golden airbrush paints. Go with the Wicked Colors or use one of the others to ease the learning curve? I'm thinking about just getting 1 bottle each of black and white while I'm trying this out, good idea or bad idea?

2. With the paints mentioned above, should I get a bunch of extra bottles that hook to my airbrush, find a bottle top that will work with the paint that I choose, or??? Will the Createx Redi-Caps work with Wicked Colors bottles?

3. Craftsman compressor, Iwata airbrush - Go with an Iwata regulator or get a Craftsman regulator to save money? Or go with a different brand? Is any one company preffered for regulators? I haven't been able to find much info about the different regulators other than Name, Price and In Stock/Out of Stock.

4. The Iwata Table Top Cleaning Station or other equivalent - don't need it, handy but save your money for now, or how did I live without it?

Thanks for the help, answers and information in my other threads. Thanks in advance for any other advice also. Hopefully will be ordering all of this after the 4th of July.

[cdv]

Well, thats a load of questions so let me take a stab at it since I've just gone through what you are about to....

#1 Any of the paints you mentioned are good. I've stuck mostly to the Createx ones... Wicked Paints is what I use most now along with Auto Bourne and Auto Air. They can be a bit finicky to use, especially the AA. I'd recommend you getting what you can get easily and also getting a bottle of reducer along with the black and whites you were going to get.

#2 The Wicked Paints come in 16 oz bottles and won't fit on the airbrush, the Createx or Auto bourne/Auto Air 4 oz bottles will fit with the cap and tube adapters you can get from most craft stores or online catalogs. So if you choose Wicked Paints, you will need some bottles.

#3 Do you already have a compressor? Mine (a Craftsman) already has a regulator on it so it wasn't necessary for me. I did get an inline moisture trap for mine. One important thing, be sure to drain your compressor daily. Check to see IF the drain is on the bottom or slightly off center cause if its off center you will retain water in the tank and it will rust unless you tip it over to drain all the water out.

#4 I started out without a cleaning station. Using the Medea Airbrush Cleaner to clean between colors... I found that I was coughing up a storm from the atomized cleaner that I would spray directly into an open garbage can. Now that I have a cleaning station, that doesn't happen and its less mess. You don't need to get one right away but the cost is only about $15.

Cliff

[fontgeek]

You can save your money and get at least as good a result on the cleaning station by using an empty jar, preferably a large one from something like peanut butter, mayonaise, etc., and spray into it while holding a paper towel over the top of the jar. This keeps the fumes and overspray contained, and the big mouth jar makes it easy to clean out, it also gives you a dump station for excess paint, cleanout water, etc. When the bottle is full, you can safely put the cover on it for transprotation and dumping, and when the jar gets too beaten up, you can toss it and use a new one. This saves your money on the cleanout station, and on the expensive filters you need to replace on them on a regular basis.

On the paint issues, so much depends on what your work is on. If you are working on textiles, then use textile paint, but if you are working on paper, don't waste your money on them. While they may work on paper, they require higher airpressure levels, and create more overspray, they also tend to be more expensive and problematic.
The Golden AIrbrush Colors will be the easiest to learn with by far!

As far as the quick caps or redi caps, unless you are going to have a bunch of colors you need to switch out fast, I'd say save your money until you know what YOU really need and want. Many people buy tons of stuff because "That's what the Pro's use", when in reallity, they don't and won't use them themselves.

The typical water traps are effective for moisture in it's liquid form, not in it's vapor form, so putting a water trap at the compressor alone will catch only a minimal amount of the moisture that's actually going through the compressor. Adding a second moisture trap at the end of a 50' hose will help you eliminate a whole lot more of the water. The 50' hose acts like the coils in a car's radiator, giving the air a chance to cool down, and letting the moisture go to it's liquid form, letting the second trap catch it. You may want to add a desicant dryer if you really have a problem with moisture, they have a super absorbant material inside them and it tends to catch the moisture in all it's forms, the downside on many of them is that the material is not replaceable, so you have to replace the whole filter when they are saturated to capacity.

Keep your compressor as far away from you and your work as possible, this helps you avoid the heat and noise, and it helps the comressor and you by not forcing the compressor to inhale contaminated air.