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Hi Im am in the process of making an electricians cake and have so far made the cake look like a cable reel then I can wind sugarpaste around it to resemble the wire. I have covered it with teddy bear brown sugarpaste but would like to age the reel by airbrushing it before I add the “wire”. Does anyone know how I would go about this as I haven used my airbrush very much and when I did it was for a solid colour. Thanks in advance

Hi JustJennys Cakes

I haven’t got a lot of experience with my airbrush, in fact I’ve packed it away! I used it on a cake board marked out to look like floor boards. To get the distressed look I covered cake board in ivory coloured sugarpaste and scored nicks, dents and cracks with pointed end of the veining tool. Also made a few irregular hatchings here and there to make the eventual floor look as if it had scuff marks and knots. I first sprayed the whole board with a very light sandy brown similar to teddy bear brown and graduated to a darker shade to build up the colour in places. The scored lines and dents showed up quite well and were touched up with a paint brush with dark brown, black and some grey lustre mixed in with a little icing sugar I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing your looking for. I wasn’t 100% pleased with the effect but it did look like old wood. It was little too dark for my liking so I removed some of it with a sponge moistened with vodka which also added another dimension. I did have a lot of trouble with the colour coming off on my hands after it had dried. If your reel is the plastic effect type perhaps just gouge out a few nicks and dents from the main body and rim. Darken and shade those areas to make it look slightly knocked about. I also googled ‘cable reel cake’ in the hopes of getting a clue. Most were wood effect. Wish I could help more, seems like we both need some guidance in this media.

Hi Madeitwithlove
Thankyou for your reply.
I had to airbrush the cake Friday night so had to take it slowly and hope it would turn out ok. First off I hadn realised the reels were wooden. I had in my mind those scruffy thick card ones. On the top board I impressed a central circle and spanning out from that impressed a pleat pattern all the way round from the outer circle with a piece of dowelling as I didn’t know what was supposed to be on it. I also put a pleat pattern on the bottom board where it was showing around the bottom of the cake. The middle column I just left plain. Using brown airbrush colour I sprayed lightly all the way round the cake and boards to get a mottled affect and after that just kept layering colour, sometimes moving in a little with the spray to get a darker shade. The effect was quite good and the colour was lovely. Had I known the reels were wooden I would have scored the icing as you have suggested to get that grain effect, so have learned another lesson for the future should I need it again. I then rolled wire from black sugarpaste and wound it around the centre until it was about halfway up drooping some of it so it looked loosely coiled. After that, I made tools to sit on top of the reel, more coloured wire and covered the board the whole cake was sitting on and added lettering to it, which resembled cut wire. Im hopeing the recipient will like the cake and will be waiting anxiously for feedback later today.
When iv used the airbrush in the past, I too have noticed the colour coming off onto my hands and wondered myself if it needed a seal of glaze spray. However, it didn come off this time and I wondered if it was because I sprayed it lightly, layer by layer? My other problem was mixing colours. However careful I am putting the drops of colour in the chamber, when mixing a second lot, I always accidently put too many drops of colour in the mix and then get a different shade altogether from the first time! On that note I think im going to have to practise a lot more if I want to use it more often. Thanks again for your advice.

I’m so glad you got it done, must have been a bit stressful. I’ve give up on the airbrush until we can get to one of Dawn Butler’s classes. I’ve got a lot of questions to ask her about the colour coming off and other problems with her brush. I did the same as you, go in and with the colour to get shading and built the colour up gradualy but it still came off.
I can’t wait for you get your feed back, would love to the know what recipient’s reaction was to the cake. x

Hi MIWL
Just to let you know that the recipient of the cake was over the moon with it, so phew, all good. Hope you get the answers to those questions, I for one would be very interested in how to solve some of the problems with the airbrush. Could Paul not help at all? Anyway thanks again for your input x