My equipment

My equipment

In this section part of the equipment I use for my modeling work will be described here.

After almost two years of use I thought it time to clean up my desk.
More and more parts and tools went AWOL. Some things got recovered, others seem to have disappeared into thin air. Now is as good a time as any to clean up my workspace, I thought.

And so I did.
And to celebrate the occassion (and also to have some proof that once my desk was really clean and organised) I took some pictures of my workspace and equipment that I use to share with you.

The Desk:

After we bought this house I "claimed" the attic, to turn it into my modeling sanctum. And the first thing I bought for this sanctum was the desk, a few lamps, a cutting mat and several small cupboards with drawers to stow away the paints, tools and aftermarket parts.
On the desk itself are also two small containers with drawers. In them I store the models and parts I'm working on so I always have them within reach.

At the front of the desk is my trusty Dremel motortool. Indispensable for the modeler. Although it would have been better to get a cordless version and/or a version with lower revs...

The Airbrush Cabin:

Next to the desk is my airbrush cabin. This really is something that I wouldn't want to miss anymore.
Apart from the effect that it extracts fumes (there's an exhaust tube which goes to the outside), it also helps keeping the parts dustfree when they are drying.



My airbrush cabin is a homemade construction.
I used an old bedside table. I put some self-adhesive white foil on the inside (which, sadly, isn't very white anymore in several places). Closed the rear with a cheap piece of wood and made a hole in the rearwall for two fans.
From thick carton I made an intermediate piece for connecting the fans to the exhaust tube.
Inside the airbrush cabin I mounted two day-light neon lights.

The Compressor:

Long, long ago (in a modeling era far away) I had bought a Tamiya membrane compressor for my airbrush activities.
But a disadvantage of this kind of compressor is that the pressure could not be regulated. And that was something that I really wanted to have.

Luckily for me, there's a site called eBay. And through eBay I found my current compressor.



The compressor is very quiet. It has a small reservoir of 4 ltr. and a pressure regulator.
And I must admit that I'm very happy with it. Only once did I have a problem with the pressure-sensor which did not work correctly anymore. But the seller sent me a new pressure sensor and since then the compressor is working perfectly again.
It's quiet, it's versatile and small enough to stow it away when not needed. An ideal solution if you don't have the room for (or don't want the noise of) a big compressor.

The Airbrush Guns:

I have two airbrush guns at my disposal.
The first airbrush gun I owned was from Tamiya and came with the membrane compressor.
It was a single action, pistol-grip airbrush. I used this gun to good effect for creating a camo pattern on a Lancaster bomber (which sadly has become damaged beyond repair over the years) and painting several cars.
But the years have been rough on the pistol. And apart from the age, it was a rather cheap plastic construction and as such had to be replaced.



Because of my experience with a pistol-grip airbrush gun (like the one I got with the compressor) I decided to buy the Tamiya one on the right picture above.
It's a sort of dual action aribrush (but not really). And it really works extremely well.
But there's one thing that bothers me. It's a dog to clean. For a Japanese work of art, not much thought has gone into user friendliness...

A good reason for me (as if I needed any) to purchase another airbrush.
This one (the Evolution 2-in-1) I bought at Euro Scale Modeling in 2006. And to this date I have no regrets whatsoever. It's a very priceworthy and easy to use airbrush.
At first I was a bit hesitant to buy this one because of the different control mechanism. But once I got used to it (and that didn't take long), I haven't used the Tamiya airbrush anymore.

The Evolution 2-in-1 is a great piece of value for money for me. Cleaning is a breeze, it's very easy to use and I'm very happy with it.