Last week when I was in Hobbycraft I saw a Badger airbrush compressor that was really reduced (as it seems all airbrushes are at the moment…?), anyhow, given the description on the tag I thought it was £95 for just the compressor. I did think hard about getting it, but I left it.
Today a friend happened to be in there and saw it had been reduced to £45! :o
When I got to look in the box earlier I saw not only was there an airbrush in there as well (:D) but it was originally priced at £225…!?
Not sure if it was ever actually on sale at that price, but the airbrush alone is normally around £60. Gravity fed.
I remember reading on Dakka that Hobbycrafts all over the UK are having a massive sale of airbrushes (esp. Badger stuff), so there might still be some bargains.
I did try having a look around a minute ago to see if there was a reason why… Nothing yet.
The compressor works, I’ll give the airbrush a go tomorrow and let you know.
Ugh, gravity fed? That’s a shame. Well, its not my cup of tea since I use my airbrushing for painting large models. Having to keep the airbrush level for fear of the medium spilling is an annoyance, but see how you get on with it. Is it an open cup, or does it have a lid? Another annoyance is the inability to switch colours quickly. With jars and cups, you can pull off the old colour, run some water/solvent through it, switch to a new colour and you’re off.
Airbrushes are dang cheap compared to the ones around when I got my first around 1988. I got a Paasche VL and a compressor for about $800 Cdn. The airbrush itself was about $300 of that, with 2 extra needles and some jars. 3 years later, I got a Badger Model 150 XF for $150 ( Odd pricing) and its become the best airbrush I’ve used. I’ve put everything from inks to gesso through it and its been solid. I still have the same compressor and it works great. Last year I bought a newer version of the same thing and I’m still pleased with it.
The key think with airbrushes is to get a double action unless you’re doing simple straight evenly applied colour. Double action gets you so much more control.
Not sure about windscreen washer, presumably its as a flow improver, but in my experience you don’t really need it. For most of my painting, if its acrylic/water based, I just use water, thinned quite a bit, usually 1 part colour to 3 parts water, or even more dilute. I run water through it during colour changes and use an ammonia based kitchen cleaner (Windex specifically) to clean up. You want your medium to be very thin and build up over consecutive passes with the airbrush.
You usually only want a thicker medium if you want to get close to the model/surface. If the medium is too thin, it will scatter across the surface because of the air pressure. But, if its too think, it will accumulate around the needle and not be atomized evenly, spraying onto the surface as an unexpected splatter. For me, its a trade off: I think the paint a lot, but keep my distance and lay down the paint evenly over large areas. With a double action, you can control the amount of medium running through the brush and with practice get pretty close to the model without scatter or splatter. Also, you can just push the lever down and get air running through it with no medium, so you can dry areas of the model - really good if you’re using a dilute mix, just be careful of “chasing” the watery paint across the surface.
Occasionally I’ll use Tamiya acrylic paint which needs its own thinner and I dilute with that exclusively and then as a cleaner. At the end of the session I’ll run water and ammonia cleaner to make sure its all gone.
You can never be too paranoid about cleaning the brush, IMO, its very easy to clog and you’re better off cleaning more than you might think you need to.