BadBob

I use a sanding mop mounted on my drill press.

You can get a very glossy finish with shellac. Avoid spaying it when the humidity is high.

I tried one of these and hated it. Cut a little and tighten. If you cut to long with out tightening it slips. These work pretty well for gluing up blocks of wood from 3/4-inch stock. I have a box fill of them.

I used blue tape for a long time before trying other methods, including shelf liners. I found the shelf liner annoying and quit using it after using up two rolls. I primarily use 3m spray adhesive (77/45) and put the pattern directly on the wood. Pattern removal is easy. Wet the pattern with mineral spirits and let it soak for a bit; it comes right off even the most delicate pieces. I only use blue tape when I need the piece fast and don't want to wait for the mineral spirits to dry.

Clamp the wood, take small bites and give the bit time to cool off. Low cost carbon steel bits will loose their temper if they get to hot. I would wear eye protection.

I have tried them all, and they all work. However, most of them have one common problem. As you cut, the clamp loosens because you are removing wood, and you need to retighten the clamp repeatedly as you cut. I trued a shop-made clamp that had springs to take up the slack, and that would have worked except for the spring I had was just too weak and would move. Then I thought about the spring clamp. Spring clamps have a spring that will take up slack as you cut. The first ones I tried did not work well. They were too small and weak to stay in place, so I went to the largest ones I had. These clamps have a strong spring, and I have difficulty opening them with my weak hand. Perfect. The large spring clamps stayed where I put them and kept the parts aligned. As a bonus, being made out of plastic, they will not damage the blade if you should accidentally hit the clamp.

Cutting with the grain (rip cut) differs from cutting across the grain (crosscut). That is why you can get rip, and crosscut blades for a table saw. Handsaws also come in both rip and cross-cut versions. Scroll saws by necessity need to be a combination blade. When you are cutting with the grain the sawdust is more difficult for the blade to clear and will be slower in some cases. This can vary greatly depending on the blade and the wood you are cutting. Every piece of wood is different. I find that when I am cutting flat-sawn wood the difference is less noticeable. When I cut quality plywood or MDF the direction of the cut makes very little difference. However, I have cut some 3/4-inch MDF that I swear had a grain.

An increase of 3db is double the sound level.

He painted the car one panel at a time using automotive lacquer. You're going to love this: His air supply was a tire. I, too, have been trained as an auto painter and worked in body shops for a while until I got fed up with the crapy work they wanted me to do. This training and experience did very little to prepare me for painting with an airbrush. It's a skill you must learn either by someone teaching you or by trial and error, as I did. I spent considerable money, time, and effort just figuring out how to do what I needed. I haven't counted them, but I own ten or more airbrushes. I started by buying the lowest-cost airbrushes I could find and worked my way up until one day, I was gifted a Badger Anthem 155, which did exactly what I wanted. It will spray a lot of paint very fast and can do thin lines if I ever want to. There are several Badger airbrushes that use the same tip and needle combination. I have all of them. You can spray at least as large a pattern as a rattle can using an airbrush. You must use the proper tip size to do this. You can push a lot of paint through a 7mm tip and need a large paint cup.

A lot of the lower-cost airbrushes are not suitable for spraying lacquer. It will dissolve the seals.

You can spray quite large areas with an airbrush using the proper tips. I used to work with someone who painted full-size cars with an airbrush. He had a wall full of trophies from car shows.

I use these hoses and recommend them.

Is your airbrush a single or double action? With a single, you get air and paint at the same time. Using a double-action airbrush, you must press down and pull back. Your airbrush tip could be clogged. Acrylics can dry very fast in some conditions. Clean the airbrush to be sure it is not clogged, and then try spraying water or solvent through it. The difference between a single and double-action airbrush is the paint delivery mechanism. A single-action airbrush delivers paint with only the press of a button. A double-action airbrush only lets air pass through when you press down on the trigger. It begins to let paint through when you slide the trigger back and allows more through as you pull the trigger back further. This allows you to adjust the size of the paint stream and the amount of paint passing through your brush as you paint. The ability to do this is the primary advantage of a double-action airbrush over a single-action airbrush.

Mr. Bones also made for my grandson.

A large batch of Halloween items in progress.

I made thes for my grandson a few years ago .

Handmade Wooden Halloween Ghost Cutouts - Set of 6 Silly Spooks 724117934 36s Shotcut.mp4

That is only about half of what I have. If I counted right, I have ten airbrushes and maybe 30 paint bottles. Craft acrylics can work quite well if adequately thinned. I have also sprayed house paint successfully. The red, green, and yellow car bodies in the photo are craft paint, the cheapest I could get at Walmart. The blue, pink, and lavender colors are house paint. Oops, paint from Home Depot. One of the advantages of using an airbrush is the ability to get custom colors. Paint stores and places like Home Depot will mix custom colors.

Acrylics are very easy to clean up. I use cheap window cleaner from the dollar store for this. When thinning with water, I always use distilled water. There is no telling what is in tap water that might react with the paint, especially if I use bottles and want to save the paint that is left over.

I price my item using the replacement cost of the materials used. Many other things go into the price calculation.

I have a two-stage compressor with a 30-gallon tank that I use most of the time. I also have a Harbor Freight Compressor that was given to me. Much to my surprise, the Habor Freight compressor works fine. I can't attest to its durability because I don't use it much. The larger two-stage compressor is almost 40 years old and can be used for many things besides airbrushes.

I have a large collection of airbrushes from cheap china ones to Made in USA Badger airbrushes. If I could only have one it would be the Badger 155 Anthem.

This should give you some ideas.

Cheap Chinese airbrushes are throwaways. If you break or bend a needle, you will discover that replacement parts are hard or impossible to get. If you find the parts, they may cost as much or more than a new airbrush.

I use window cleaner (aka Windex) for cleaning my airbrushes when spraying acrylic paint. The cheapest I can get from the dollar store.