Second Go At Improving My Airbrush
A Good Idea - Badly Done?
My first attempt at modifying my Actekart’s paint feed system was more of a ‘proof of concept’ exercise than a real solution to my problem. Here’s a link to my Mk. 1 version post (opens in new window)…
https://milgeekuk.blogspot.com/2026/06/ark-tech-airbrush-upgrade.html
You see, in it’s original form the Actekart uses small plastic bottles to feed the paint to the airbrush needle, but while I say ‘small bottles’ they are - from the point of view of a miniatures modeller - still larger capacity than I need.
Unfortunately, just filling these bottles with a small amount of paint is problematic and can cause feed issues where - if there isn’t enough paint - the feed can be interrupted and will splutter. To get around this I have simply filled the bottle more than I actually need or want to to make sure I have a consistent feed of paint to the needle. Not ideal. 😟
Small modeller’s paint bottles - such as Vallejo (and even worse, Citadel) - are only designed with modest paint use in mind, whether that be by brush or conventional airbrush. And even is you are using a traditional airbrush setup they brush normally comes with a small paint reservoir ‘cup’ which only requires a small amount of thinned paint to function correctly.
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| Above: A conventional airbrush reservoir 'cup' along side my usual brand of airbrush paints. These small 'dropper' bottles are designed with the small capacity cup in mind. Sometimes all I need is three of four drops of paint and some added thinners to get my jobs done. |
Not so the Actekart. I think this is because the Actekart is designed with larger craft/DIY jobs in mind where you need a portable airbrush system, like car bodywork repair for example. In this situation the bottles it uses make more sense.
My first attempt to modesty this system to accommodate small amounts of paint was -perhaps - a good idea in theory, but my design was a bit ‘shoddy’ (though it did prove the idea could work).
My Second Go!
OK, so my first attempt at solving my problem with the Actekart showed promise but had several drawbacks.
The design was a quick ‘fudge’ and did not fit securely to the Arkteck’s feed system, my adapter was just loosely attached and held in place by simple friction. Also, my chosen reservoir ‘cup’ had a weird angled feed pipe which only worked reliably when the airbrush was held at a precise angle. Tip the Actekart up or down and the paint feed became interrupted.
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| Above: My first attempt at an adapter utilised the above airbrush cup, which - as you can see - has an upward angled feed pipe from the cup which I linked straight to the nozzle via my adapter part using a tube. obviously, if I pointed the airbrush DOWN paint then spilled out of this cup! |
Additionally, the cup I used had no lid. So if I did tip the airbrush to far the paint in the cup had a nasty habit of spilling out the cup! 😑 Not good.
What I needed was a more secure adaptor piece AND a feed cup with a better feed pipe and a lid.
Luckily a quick sear on Amazon soon netted me an ideal alternative cup which feed through the bottom and which had a screw on cap.
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| Above: The replacement airbrush cup set that I found on Amazon. I was after the smallest sized cup in this set, which was steel and came with a screw on lid! Ideal. |
The adapter redesign was a bit more complex though as - unfortunately - I have not yet figured out how to create a screw spiral for bottle cap attachments. This is important as the Actekart feed system - with it’s bottle-based paint reservoirs - relies on attaching the bottles to the feed cap - which then slots into the airbrush spray nozzle part - by screwing the bottle into the cap.
This is why I had to resort to simply slipping my adapter into the Actekart ‘nozzle’ ring, held in place by friction alone. I would have preferred to have made a screw fixing, but I just do not have the 3D design expertise to design a screw fitting of the size to fit the Actekart’s fitting (may be a job for my Mk. 3 version). 😧
But in any case, while still not perfect I was determined to make my next incarnation of my adapter design to be at least a bit more secure and a more reliable feed system.
The main design feature of this new adaptor was its incorporation of a holder for the new bottom fed paint cup. But I also needed a reliable way to get that feed from the cup to the nozzle. In my first attempt I was helped because the feed cup that I used had a feed pipe built in with which I could link the cup to the nozzle with the help of a piece of plastic tube that comes with the Actekart system.
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| Above: My 3D design for my Mk.II adaptor. A three-piece combo, with a nozzle attachment, a cup holder and the all important tube tunnel block that connects everything together. |
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| Above: By turning on TinkerCAD's 'x-ray' feature you can see inside the main connector block and how the 'tunnel' for the plastic tube runs from the cup holder to the nozzle attachment. |
The key feature here is the pipe as my new paint cup had no built in pipe of it’s own, so I would have to find some way to securely guide a small length of plastic tube from the nozzle to the cup…
What I came up with was a feature of my 3D design software - TinkerCAD - that allows you to create custom 3D tubes. With this new feature I could create a ‘tunnel’ inside a 3D block to connect the nozzle at one end to the cup at the other.
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| Above: My first test print of the connector block just to check out sizes, fit and whether the tunnel actually worked! (I have never printed a component with a tube running through it before and wasn't sure if it would actually work without supports. It did!!!) |
The 3D Design & Printing
To key design feature - as I said - is the ‘tunnel’ for the feed tube created inside the main adapter block that I will be making - with connection parts at either end of the tunnel to join the block to the nozzle at one end and the feed cup at the other. Phew!
Because of the relative complexity of the gadget I decided to split this new adapter up into three sub-components for printing…
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| Above: The three sub-components (white), plus the nozzle, plastic tubing and the steel cup. |
The Nozzle end attachment - The tube ‘tunnel’ block - The feed cap holder - are designed to be printed separately to reduce use of 3D supports and to aid maintenance and cleaning (should they need it).
A little hiccup was that the plastic tubing that came with the Actekart set was a little too flimsy and apt to bend. I had problems pushing it through the tunnel aperture and was worried that any kinks would prevent the paint from feeding properly.
So I hopped on Amazon an found a length of 2.5mm Silicone Tubing as a replacement. The good thing about this was it come in long lengths so I would have plenty spare should I have to regularly replace it.
That done I tried out pushing the tubing through my adaptor...
That worked fine, so it was time to try and fit all the components together and - fingers crossed - the tubing would go through everything once assembled.
It was a bit of a tight fit and I did - in the end - have to resort to using a piece of thin wire to pull the tubing through the feed cap, the adapter block and -finally - the nozzle pieces. It was fiddly, but I managed it.
Phew! Now the last part of this test was to attach one of the single use airbrush needles to the end of the nozzle, attach the whole thing to the airbrush, bang in some paint and give it a go!!!
Ooops! Disappointing Start!
Well, bugger! After all this work I was excited about my first go with my new adapter, so imagine my horror when I pressed the airbrush trigger and the it spluttered and spat out splatters of paint! 😟
When I took my gadget to bits (happy I went down the separate component route now) I found dried particles of paint that came in from the old bottle of paint I filled the feed cup from. So I cleaned out the whole thing and tried again…
Yay! Success. To be sure, the quality of spray is NOT up to the fine consistency of a expensive conventional airbrush running off a separate compressor, but the sheer convenience - where I can have this contraption up and running in seconds - make it a great choice for me.
Between this convenience and the ability to quickly change colours this is the ideal ‘easy beginners’ airbrush for me. I just don’t use an airbrush regularly enough for me to commit to a ‘pro’ system. I just want something that works after being neglected for a period of time (and I may have forgotten to clean properly the last time I used it)!
But, anyway, the point of this project was to allow me to use smaller mixes of paint for my small models rather than using the original Acetech feed bottle, and in this I think I succeeded.
It will be interesting to see how this gadget worked after a few paint projects… We shall see.
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