Airbrushing Leather (Buying An Airbrush)

[Cozee]

Found a few more designs made with the HF brush . . .

One more for the goat lovers out there . . .

[Blackie]

Beautiful work cozee! I hope HF is giving you a piece, im sold!

[Waylon1977]

Harbor Freight gets a bad wrap, but i think their tools have a place- some of them suck, but some that io have gotten have worked really well!

[Art]

If you are spraying spirit dyes, make sure you have teflon seals in your brush, NOT rubber. Ribber goes all gooey (a chemical term) when it has interaction with the alcohol. However, if the price is right, you can just replace the airbrush (although the seals would be more economical) when they deteriorate.

Art

[club49]

Thank you for your input. I just purchased a HF air brush set, it coast me $89. I am going to use it for dyeing leather only. I will be using Fiebings oil dye. Do you cut it 50/50 with Fiebings reducer? Can you use any alcohol? Thank you all for the info.

Jim

[retiredff]

Club - I use a Master G22 and I have a Veda WD-180 airbrush (AB), both were <$40 and both spray dye, acrylic finishers/resists just fine. When I spray dye or the resist (pro-clear) I cut them 50/50 or 1:1. The master brush came with 3 needles, a .2, .3 and a .5. I use the .5 to spray the dyes and resist/finish and the veda for detailed stuff with acrylic paints (Angelus and createx). I'm just beginning to learn spraying with acrylics so I'm not alot of help there. I would save my $$$ until u are sure a high dollar brush is what you need. I also invested in a California Air tools quiet compressor. I had a 5 gal tank that I AB with but that grew into a PITA going to the garage to refill it especially in the winter and It's quiet enough to use in the house. I bought the 4610A.

http://www.californiaairtools.com/ultra-quiet-oil-free-air-compressors/1-0-hp-air-compressors/

Tony

[Billsotx]

I know this is old; hope someone sees it. I tried spraying Tan Kote with a HF air brush, no luck. I believe the TK is too thick. Any suggestions for diluting finishes like, Tan Kote, Resolene, Bick 4, etc. and spring them through an air brush would be appreciated; are these finishes consider acrylics? Acrylics means water soluable, right? (I didn't see any sense in starting another air brush thread.) Thanks in advance for replies. ~Bill

[CrazedLemming]

Any suggestions for diluting finishes like, Tan Kote, Resolene, Bick 4, etc. and spring them through an air brush would be appreciated; are these finishes consider acrylics? Acrylics means water soluable, right?

Resolene is an acrylic and can be cut with water. I don't know about the others you listed.

My first tests spraying diluted resolene the other day went well except for some chunks clogging the airbrush. I'm going to try filtering the finish on my next attempt. I was using it in one of the ultra-cheap HF brushes. The $10 plastic one that comes with a bunch of jars. I wouldn't use it for coloring, but I think it'll work well for shooting acrylic finish across a whole piece once the blobs are filtered out.

[retiredff]

You probably need to thin it with water if acrylic, it should say on the bottle or ask where you bought it. Find the specs on your harbor freight airbrush, f the needle is .2 anything you spray will need thinned, .3 less thinning and a .5 for dyes probably not, but finishes like tan note and bicks will need thinned. I thin dyes 1:1 because I can control the color better.

If the airbrush is spitting, skipping or not spraying at all it could be the media is too thick. If it has been thinned then raise the psi. A top feed (gravity) requires less pressure and a bottom feed requires more pressure. Alot of airbrushing is practice and testing then remembering what works with what. Practice spraying dyes on scrap (maybe light brown), when dry spray black along the edges for a sunburst. With very little practice that is quite easy.

Tony

[retiredff]

CrazedLemming - I put my finishes, paints (Angelus) and dyes (Fiebings) in a bottle that have been thinned. I use my wifes old hose stockings to filter it into a dropper bottle, coffee filters in a small funnel may work also.