Here's sort of a photo essay of my airbrush workflow. Hopefully of use to new guys, certainly not the only way to do things, or even the best, but it works for me.
I have a dedicated table for mixing paint and cleanup. The top is glass (used to use it as a palette for oil painting -- as on canvas). Makes it impervious to spills.
Safety equipment: chemical rated respirator; i keep it sealed in a plastic baggie when not use. Nitrile gloves are not 100% impervious to lacquer thinner, but they help keep the stuff off your skin. When the lacquer thinner containers are open, the mask goes on. While on the subject, remember to not have open beverages or food around when you are working with volatile poisons like lacquer thinner -- they get absorbed and you end up consuming them. Same goes for cigarettes, but if you smoke, you've made your own deal with the devil...
The Paasche VL can accept a variety of cups and jars, and it is handy to have an assortment. I keep the large glass jar filled with lacquer thinner, and the small jar filled with Windex. You can fairly easily make your own containers too; the thing will suck from the bottom of a two liter soda bottle if give it a long enough straw... The metal cups I use for paint -- only if the quantity warrants it, otherwise I just squirt a couple drops into the receiver. The large can ("Postcards") is an airtight slop wash filled with LT. The bottom has a cage made of hardware cloth to allow the sediment to settle, like the thing in the foreground. A smaller can made from an old aluminum tomato juice container with holes poked into and a wire handle serves as a parts baskets. Mostly I use this for cleaning the metal cups.
I mix paint for spraying into these little plastic sealable jars that I get for about $2/dozen at the art supply store. I mostly spray Tamiya acrylics mixed with Tamiya thinner; these cups are impervious to that, but stronger solvents like LT will attack them. In that case glass jars are the best bet. The little battery-powered paint mixer is a huge time saver; these paints separate virtually instantly so they need to be well stirred before decanting. Portioning paint and thinner is accomplished with the 'disposable' pipettes, which are actually quite reusable. I start with a 50:50 mixture and adjust from there to get a nice 'skim milk' viscosity for spraying. The glass garlic jar contains LT which I use for cleaning the pipettes. If the color is a mixture, I mark the lid noting the colors and the ratio. Otherwise I assume I can tell by looking at it what it is :-)
This is my paint station, 30" booth. Not cheap really, but nicely made and does the job. Vents out the window with clothes dryer ducts. Must remember to open window before turning it on!
A spray booth is not essential. You can spray in a well ventilated room that you can close off from living quarters or out in the garage. Some people even do this outdoors, but wind and temperature need to be favorable. Keep in mind that paints spray differently depending on humidity and temperature -- if you can control these to some extent, your life will be easier.
My airbrush cleaning regimen. I prefer to take my airbrush apart as few times as possible, both to save time and to save wear and tear. Every time you torque a threaded fastener is a tick of the life clock, as anyone who has been around racing cars or airplane engines knows. I also prefer to consume as little solvent as possible, for obvious reasons. Therefore I spray LT through into the cleaning jar till it runs clear, then I simply put it away. It is not surgically clean -- there will still be a thin film of paint inside the nozzle and on the needle. Next time I use it, I soak the front portion of the airbrush in LT for say five minutes before using it, and it will run perfectly.
Your mileage may vary, but that's what I do...
