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Saw in your "on the workbench" thread that you live in an apartment (a nice one at that )
Then I read that you airbrush your models, so i thought i might ask if you have some tips for a soon to be apartment
resident that would like to keep airbrushing his models, without wearing a respirator all the time he´s at home!
Yeah, its not easy trying to keep the fumes under control. I set up my spray box in front of an open door onto the balcony. Thankfully the prevailing wind blows against the other side of my building, so there tends to be a natural 'suck' pulling the fumes out the door. It would be nice to have a permanent set up one day, but this has to do for now...
I live in an apartment too, so i spray the models onto a small balcony from the kitchen (all doors and windows to the kitchen closed in order to avoid getting fumes inside the house). I don't have a spray booth, just a small table. But I still wear a 3M half face mask with 2 cartridges.
It's not the best setup (especially that here in Cyprus is very dusty), but I don't have any other choice for now.
i'm not sure you grasp just how toxic and nasty some of these modeling paints are...the auto industry uses very similar paints and they recomend extracters and a mask at all times.eye protection even better...i have tried many things since taking delivery of my fine airbrush a year or so ago, i usually felt pretty poisened during and after for maybe an hour.i'd always go as fast as possible but still could smell solvent really strongly through my correct spec mask! in all it made me not want to paint for fear of what i was doing to my only 37 yr old body?!!
i stumbled across a much better way a few mths ago.basically use a proper respirator with en141 cartridges (there are some which look the same but are not suitable) plastic eye goggles and then the main differene maker a 12 inch household fan. placed a little to the side of ones working area and behind where one is stood.fan on medium speed and pointed at wide open window 6ft away (2mtrs).theory is that pressure of airbrush blows any paint not hitting model past it where its caught in the airstream from fan and blown right out of the open window! to my delight it really really does work, i was weeks away from lashing out best part of £300 for an purpose built extracter as i felt my health would be really affected in ways too awfull to contemplate...oh and i spray in my small apartment kitchen (10x8ft) with a reletivly small window.
my whole experience of painting my kits has changed loads for the better.now i can take my time and really enjoy the process and of course do a much better job...i would strongly advise anyone using automotive type paints to really check out what they are doing as some of the chems involved are truly not good....anyway hope this could help people as much as it has heped me....happy painting!
The safety hazard with the auto paints comes from the 2 parts paints (like the urethane clear coats). For those only a fresh air supply respirator system is suitable. For the rest the cartridge type mask (marked suitable for organic vapors) should be enough.
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