Airbrushes

I got my first airbrush as a junior in high school, spring of 2003.  It was a cheap Aztek A270 starter pack that came with a can of compressed air.  It was a siphone-feed single-action tool that never really worked.  I think I successfully painted maybe 3 models with it.  I could hardly get the thing to feed paint successfully and the can of air that came with it ran out after 2 uses.  It came with an adapter for a normal compressor (which my dad had) but nonetheless, it was never anything even approaching reliable.

The first airbrush of countless frustrated modelers

I lost interest in scale modeling and moved back to tabletop gaming shortly after purchasing my Aztek so it got put into storage for a few years.  When I got back into scale modeling in early 2009, I ended up digging it out, purchasing a new set of nozzles and rediscovering how terrible an airbrush it was.  It was just worthless.  I could not get any paint out of the thing, no matter how well thinned it was. Once I became accustomed to the push down for air pull back for paint operation of a double action airbrush I was able to paint some pretty mediocre (Ha!) model kits). I eventually bought an airbrush compressor fron a friend of mine which made everything a breeze.

In about March of that year I headed off to my local Hobby Lobby with a 40% coupon in hand and bought myself a brand spanking new Paasche VL.  I felt like I was shit hot walking out with a double action airbrush with interchangeable needles and nozzles.

At 40% off its actually a pretty good airbrush.

I still didn't have my own compressor so I had to go to my folks house to use my dad's 5 gallon shop compressor. Certainly not ideal but it was all I had.  And my folks only lived 4 blocks away.  And I had a key to their house.  The VL proved to be a pretty handy piece of kit.  I picked up an airbrush compressor from a friend and the VL and I painted quite a few kits together over the next few months.  The push-down-for-air-pull-back-for-paint operation of a double action was almost intuitive, not entirely without a learning curve, but not as complicated to master as I feared.

Speaking of conpressors, let's talk about those for a quick minute.  My first compressor was an Airbrush City unit I bought used from a friend for $40. It was meant only for airbrushing, was super quiet and came equipped with a moisture trap.  The outlet pressure was very easy to adjust and the control simply popped up and down to lock in place. Buzz your tongue with your lips open and that's about how quiet this thing was.  It was great.

Another necessary piece of kit.

The only downside of the compressor was that even with its rubber feet it had a tendency to walk itself across the floor.  I'd been using it pretty heavily for about 9 months when it bit the dust on me.  My friend had used it for I don't know how long before he sold it to me so I wasn't too irritated when it crapped out.  I figured $40, no big deal.  I ended up replacing it with a Husky Air Scout with a 1 gallon tank for $100 at Home Depot.

Wonderful for putting air in your tires, for airbrushing...not so much...

I worked with it for about 6 years and experienced a number of issues that I don't really want to go into.  Just last spring I relegated the Husky to filling flat tires when I got a Harbor Freight airbrush compressor.

Virtually the same as my old airbrush compressor.

It may sound stupid but the quality of my work took a marked upswing after beginning to use this compressor.  Ok, long story short, a good compressor meant only for airbrushing is a necessity for achieving quality results.

Back to airbrushes.  My friend sold me the airbrush I've been using for nearly 7 years in the fall of 2009.  It is an Infinity from Harder & Steenbeck.  

My 3-year old was able to use this successfully when he was 2.

It's a double action gravity feed airbrush with a number of interesting features I wasn't used to.  You can adjust the tension on the trigger spring by adjusting the nut on the middle of the handle, pretty standard for most airbrushes.  It has a governor (for lack of a better term) that allows you to limit the amount that of needle travel thus limiting the amount of paint you get.  Just turn the end cap at the back to adjust the amount of travel you would like, push the cap in to engage it and pop it back out when you're done.  I'll post a video of it in operation some time.  My particular brush is different from the one pictured above in one way. I have what H&S calls the FPC  (fine pressure control) module.  It screws on the bottom where you hook up your air hose and simply twists back and forth to allow you to adjust the pressure right at your brush! These two features work great together when trying to highlight small figures and preshade panel lines.  It also features a quick disconnect for the air hose.  I have both a .4 and a .15 needle and nozzle for it and I have never found myself wanting something bigger or smaller.  You can get comparable models from Iwata or Badger but I'm going to stick with H&S.  

Those are my experiences with airbrushes and compressors.  Certainly not a comprehensive review of anything.  Just thought I'd share my thoughts.