Painting fiberglass parts on scale airplanes can be easy or they can drive airbrushes crazy trying to get the kind of finish that you want. Fortunately, Iwata designs a range of airbrushes, spray guns and compressors so you can get the perfect finish that sends realism soaring to new heights.

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Darrol Cady

"The Iwata Miniature Spray Gun has almost a 4" spray fan. For the kind of painting that we do on our models, that is more than enough. It also has two air adjustments on the gun. One at the base of the body is to adjust total pressure and the other adjusts the fan size. The fan adjustment is a great feature. With this, you can go from a full fan to a round spray. The round spray is the same spray as you get with an airbrush. There is also a trigger limit that controls the amount of paint and air that passes through the spray head. With all the controls that this gun has, you can do many things with it.

You can put on a base coat, then cut the size of the fan down to paint stripes. If you want to do some fading, just turn the fan off and turn the paint flow down. No need to get out the airbrush. You already have it in one miniature spray gun, the Iwata LPH-50. This is a miniature gun that could have been designed for us as modelers. It fills the bill.

This spray gun is also gravity-fed. As occasional users, this has some special benefits for us. For the small projects, we can mix a half ounce of paint and the gravity cup will use it all. It makes it perfect for using small batches of paint for the small jobs. The can holds 4 ounces and can be filled for the larger projects.

The other Iwata product I highly recommend is the W100 Spray Gun. It is a small high quality spray gun, but is larger than the LPH-50. I personally have both and use them for the different purposes. The LPH-50 is fantastic for trim and smaller items, but it will also paint larger items with more time and paint. The W100 is great for larger pieces or planes, but can be turned down so that it will do a good job on smaller parts and trim colors. As a base coat gun or a clear coat gun, it cannot be beat. The W100 has a larger fan and will lay the paint on quickly and more evenly with less paint.

The ideal is to have both guns. But if you only have one, choose the one that will meet most of your needs. Either will do both jobs, but each will do better on the projects that they are sized for."

- Darrol Cady
www.darrolcady.com