I am going to buy an airbrush and I was wanting to know do you have to buy airbrush colors ? Or can you take americolor gel and make it up yourself .

I've heard it's best to buy the airbrush colors.

I have one it works great but you can only use airbrush colors in it anything else even food coloring is too thick. Hope it helps

Anything other than airbrush color has tiny fibers in it that can clog your airbrush and damage it. Besides that fact, you won't get very good results with anything else anyhow, it would be splotchy and gum up on you.

Airbrush colors is the best. Any thing else will gum up your expensive machine. And uncloging it will cost you more in the long run. You can get Americolors here that are airbrush worthy.

I want and airbrush system too!! Can anyone tell me if 8-10 PSI is good? Or should I go with 0-20 PSI? I would appreciate any help, or brand name suggestions. Thanks

hiya guys,
Yep the other folks are right about the "airbrush" colors, The pigments are ground finer than in regular coloring gel or otherwise. Plus the medium in which the colors are dispursed is more evaporative than water. It's a good idea to invest in a good set of colors for your airbrush. They aren't that expensive either and last quite a while. In a high use area like a professional bakery it takes about 2 weeks for us to go through a 9 oz. bottle of the royal blue (most popular color used). So for someone who doesn't do more than a few cakes a week it would be a great investment to get the colors used in the airbrushes. (sorry bout the syntax, trying to keep words from disappearing on me). As for the PSI question, 10 psi is good, but to have a compressor that you can adjust the pressure is good too. Anything over 15 will definitely blow holes in your frosting and you get an inordinate amount of overspray. I personally like the lower pressures where I can get better control and detail.
You can see what I mean in my horse cake and lady with violin cake, which was a combination of airbrushing and painting.

Best deal on an airbrush Paasche VSR90 at dixieart.com for $65 shipped. Great brush with extras. Compressor Kopykake Airmaster PLUS from bearair.com for $159. It is an upgrade from the Aitmaster and the same price. Usually runs $300 and up.

Edit: just checked and bearair went up to $162 on the compressor, but still a great deal.

Thanks Chaptlps and CigarHerb! I ordered one and it will be here in 3 days!!!

Does that airbrush nozzle work with the krom-jet compressor. I have the compressor, but my nozzle broke in the middle of doing a cake.

hiya cakedeco,
The guns themselves are interchangeable with compressors. Some people even have two or three different guns to get different effects. You can also go to www.sugarcraft.com and get replacement parts for your gun too. Needles are especially very easy to mess up. It the tip is bent in any way shape or form it causes a big mess.

I have the AirMaster from Kopy Kake and I love it!!!
The airbrush colors from Kopy Kake are Koroma colors. I used the black on a crusted buttercream and it was an olive green. Had to really spray over to get black.

Started using the AmeriColor airbrush colors and they are much better and the black is a true black and doesn't spray on olive green

Congrats on the airbrush, you will wonder how you ever did without it