Airbrush Survey

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 1:47 pm

I've played with them (Grex brushes) @ shows. They sure feel nice and I could get a damned fine line from them.

Mark Yungblut · Post by **Mark Yungblut** » Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:39 pm

I bought this setup about 3 months ago. They are both Harder and Steenback Infinity. They absolutle ROCK! Easy to break down and with the smallest tip I can get a consistant line under 1mm wide.

For an air source I use a CO2 tank. Been using it for 30 years. No noise at all, the gas is dry as a bone, and I get about 40-50 hours of spray time per 20lb tank load.

H&S Infinities

The results speak for themselves...

A quarter for Size

The finished piece

iSteve · Post by **iSteve** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 12:42 pm

Mark Yungblut wrote:I bought this setup about 3 months ago. They are both Harder and Steenback Infinity. They absolutle ROCK! Easy to break down and with the smallest tip I can get a consistant line under 1mm wide.

For an air source I use a CO2 tank. Been using it for 30 years. No noise at all, the gas is dry as a bone, and I get about 40-50 hours of spray time per 20lb tank load.

H&S Infinities

The results speak for themselves...

A quarter for Size

The finished piece

I've got an Infinity CR 2 in 1 in my sights. Particularly like the trigger stop to maintain a consistent line. The little distance bracket thingy for writing looks pretty cool too. I've been a Badger man for many, many years, but this thing looks awesome. My wallet will cry, but it'll get over it.

I have a Campbell & Hausfeld small compressor which I now keep in the garage for bikes and the car as it's very loud and I could only airbrush during the day out of consideration for others and I model mostly at night. Picked up an Airbrush City compressor at a very reasonable price and it came with a simple airbrush as well (which I eventually gave away). It's been going strong for about 6 or 7 years at least - very happy with it.

darth_daniel · Post by **darth_daniel** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:27 am

Hi all you airbrush experts

, I need your help. I´ve used a Badger 360 for years and was mostly happy with it, but on the last model I reached a limit where I would have liked to paint thinner lines but couldn´ do so. So the question is, would a different airbrush help or is the Badger 360 good for spraying very thin lines, and I am just too incompetent?
My compressor is rather cheap and I cannot even regulate the pressure, so my thought is that maybe the 360 is well capable of producing very fine lines, but I just cannot hold the airbrush close enough to the model to create these thin lines, because the air pressure and thus paint flow is too high so I have to keep the tip at a certain distance from the model surface.
So would you recommend me to I invest in a new airbrush or a new compressor instead (I know, ideally, both.

)?

For a new airbrush, I´m torn between the Badger Omni 4000 and Iwata Ecplise HP-CS. Can these both do finer lines than the Badger 360? I want a gravity feed airbrush with a large cup with a cap. The 360´s rotatable cup is very small and I´m afraid to spill paint when painting in gravity feed mode. I could get the Omni 4000 for 130 Euros and the Eclipse HP-CS for 170 Euros. From reviews I get the impression that Iwata is the best brand, but the Eclipse´s assembly seems more complicated and fragile than the Badger´s and I´d need an adapter for the hose. Is the Ecplise worth the price difference to the Omni 4000 and what makes it worth its steeper price?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Vetter · Post by **Vetter** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 1:30 pm

Adding a regulator would be the inexpensive option. Being able to turn down the air pressure and moving closer to your work may be what you need. Granted I can't say how hard that would be for your situation but I'd think all you would need is some basic plumbing bits.

While I have an Iwata, it's a different version and I'm not familiar with the others so I wont go into that.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Sat Dec 03, 2016 11:56 pm

Add a regulator first.

darth_daniel · Post by **darth_daniel** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:39 am

Thanks for the advice, I did already search for a regulator some weeks ago but find it not so easy to find a good one with integrated manometer and ideally, at a decent price too. I first have to find out what kind of thread my compressor has... I´ not that familiar with threads in inches.

This won´t satisfy my wish for a gravity feed airbrush with larger cup though, so I´l still be happy about any recommendations about Omni 4000 vs. Eclipse HP-CS.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:52 pm

I can't speak for the Omni but the Iwata's are bloody bulletproof. I've put mine through hell and seen them handle even harsher clients.

ausf · Post by **ausf** » Fri Dec 30, 2016 6:56 pm

In terms of Iwata, I bought my first (HP-BC2) in 1986 at the original Pearl Paint in NYC.

I used it as recently as yesterday, still the original needle and nozzle. I have since bought two others for different applications, an HP-A and Kustom TH and the only thing that's changed besides adding the MAC valve is the box, from wood to plastic.

I got the Custom straight from the Home Islands for about a third of the US price. The Japanese market is odd when it comes to exports. There's always a better deal in their market, both in price and offering.

Iwata is all I'll ever use. 30 years of passing every type of paint of ink you can think of through it and it still works flawlessly.

I recently picked up a SmartJet compressor and was pleasantly surprised with it as well.