I want to pickup the hobby again after a 30+ year hiatus.

I finally bought a spray booth today.  I bought an Iwata Eclipse airbrush and Iwata Sprint Jet compressor years ago but never used it because I didn't have the spray booth.   A couple of questions:

What PSI should I use?  

Do you set the pressure regulator with the airbrush trigger pulled or closed?

I have mostly enamel paints, should I get acrylic to run through the airbrush?

Do you clean the airbrush with mineral spirits, water, or paint thinner?

What should the ratio be to thin paint in order to run through the airbrush?  For example Testers Flat Black enamel.  What is used to thin, water for acrylic and paint thinner for enamel.

Thanks.

Here is the new airbrush stuff

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Here is the stash I've been collecting since 1984.  Only seven of the kits have been started so lots of work ahead.  Does anyone actually finish all their kits or is collecting the kits just part of the hobby?

Impressive model collection. It has been quite a few years since painting cars and trucks, but I will try and provide some starting information.
Airbrushes run low pressure, around 10 psi, might need a little more depending on the paint. I always set pressure with an empty gun with air flowing, it was how I was taught. I only had to blow one pot off a paint gun to learn to carefully check pressure, what a mess that made.
Not much help with thinning model paint, the airbrush should have at least one pot of thinner ran through that is used to thin the selected paint. Good Luck, quite sure you will be proud of your work when finished. I remember painting model cars and planes with a brush, certainly not the best way to apply paint.

Thanks.  I painted quite a few model airplanes as a kid with a small paintbrush.  The camo jobs came out the best of the bunch.  Eventually started using spray cans.  Those results were better.  Hope to get even better results with an airbrush.  Some of these UTube modellers do incredible work.

I’m interested in this too, just bought a brush.

Started doing models with my son, actually I’m looking forward to making dioramas

My experience with airbrushes is that you learn to use one.......by using it.

Don't expect great results the first time, because it's a process of learning.
Practice on scrap material pays off.

Applying a base color is fairly easy, things get more complicated when doing camouflage and detail work.
I never really figured out thinning, either it was always too thick or too thin, and the paint tends to dry on the nozzle and cause clogs.

With all that said, when I bought my first cheap airbrush the quality of my work skyrocketed, and got better as I figured it all out.

I strongly recommend using a moisture trap if you don't already have one.  Nothing is more crappy then just finishing up a nice job and getting a slug of water through to ruin the work.

My advise, pick a paint and stick to it. Enamel or acrylic, but try to stay with one format.  I spray both, and both spray very differently. I’m trying to phase out my enamels.
As far as thinners/reducers, there are a lot of home made solutions, but I found out it’s easier to spend a little more and buy the mfgrs thinner and stick with it. What will thin one brand of acrylic won’t thin another brand.  

For cleaning, I keep a gallon of lacquer thinner on hand and refill a small bottle I keep on my bench. Acrylics clean up good with Windex, but use Windex without ammonia.  If you read the Iwata’s instructions it tells you to never use any cleaning product with ammonia since it will eat the brass inside the airbrush.  I use the same Iwata and it can get temperamental if it’s even the slightest dirty.

Acrylics are harder to spray. Practice a lot getting use to how it sprays and how often you have to stop to clean the tip.  Mix all paint in a small mixing cup and pour into the airbrush.  FWIW, my local Wendy’s had ketchup cups that make great mixing cups.  I may or may not have grabbed a few extras when I use to frequent the one across the street from our old office.

Thanks for the tips.