Tools Pt. 1 - Airbrush

Although I do handpaint some stuff, especially on cars and for detailing or touch ups, the majority of the painting I do is with an airbrush.  Its more expensive to start up with than either brushes or spraycans but in the long run it's cheaper than both and it just plain looks better.

I have 2 airbrushes, a Sparmax DH-103 and a Runway 13 Nozomi:

I broke the nozzle on the Sparmax airbrush.  I cleaned it and was putting it back together and tightened the nozzle too much with the wrench that comes with the airbrush.   The brass nozzle snapped in half.  Be careful, airbrush nozzles are very soft.  I used a nozzle scraping tool to get the threaded half of the nozzle out of the airbrush.   Ordered a new nozzle and a needle as well so I'd have a spare needle, the parts aren't too expensive, around 20 dollars (Australian) each.  One thing to look out for when cleaning airbrushes is the nozzle passage BEHIND the paint cup.   It's obvious that you clean the passage in front of it (between the paint cup and the nozzle) but if the passage behind gets blocked then the needle cannot pass through it.  This happened to me when I had the nozzle/needle out waiting for replacement parts.  When I went to reassemble the airbrush, the needle would not pass through the paint block.  Got the airbrush cleaner out (Tamiya) and soaked it a bit then cleaned it up with a long needle and blew the residue out (airbrush cleaner tastes crap).  I used a lot of Tamiya Metallic Grey on the model I'm working on (RG Aile Strike) and I find acrylic paint to be 'gunky' in that it leaves sticky residue behind, one of the reasons I prefer enamel and especially lacquer paints.

New Toy Alert! 

Decided to go all in and get one more airbrush, an Iwata. 

Iwata Eclipse.   This airbrush has a slightly larger nozzle than my S[armax, .035mm.  Made in Japan and carrying the best reputation in airbrushes, I'm looking forward to giving this a full workout.