Good quality beginner airbrush kit?

glorbes

Well-Known Member
I want to get an airbrush! Something good quality but not too intimidating. Any suggestions for a novice?
 
You might want to consider Badger too. The Patriot 105 can be found for anywhere between $80-$100 and of something goes wrong with it they’re US based and are readily available to help you out.


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I'm also curious about beginner airbrushes. Specifically, whether to start with a single or double action brush. I understand double is more difficult to learn, but is it best to get thrown in the deep end with a more challenging and rewarding system or learn the basics with a simple single action? I'd love to hear yalls two cents on the matter.
 
Perfect for begginers! Plus lasts a long time. Amazon sells em too.

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I started out with a noname BD-130 type airbrush and a compressor made from a fridge compressor and an old camping gas tank. If you type BD130 airbrush into ebay you'll find loads, it's really a cheapo Chinese one. It's not great but I painted quite a few models successfully with it including pre-shading, highlighting. Maybe I was just lucky?
A lot rides on how much you maintain and clean it. Take a lot of time on understanding how to take it apart, put it back together, how to clean it and make sure you clean it properly every time. I don't know about other types but the Achilles-heel of my cheapo airbrushes were the nozzle seals. They died after 2-3 cleanings and when that happens the brush will spray in a pulsating way, like a machine gun instead of a steady stream. If that happens you need to replace the nozzle seal. Either get some genuine seals or you can do what I did and kept a few of those rubber inserts from a beer cap and cut out small seals from the thicker edge. I would say a compressor with air tank is a must.
That being said, I recently replaced it with a Harder&Steenbeck and what a difference...
 
There's a ton of stuff on wish.


I recommend getting one with a top feeding reservoir. Much easier for cleaning.

And personally, I prefer using an air compressor that you get from home depot. One with a tank that you can use for other things like air tools
 
The top gravity feed airbrush makes a lot of sense, but some people don't like it because it obscures their view...depending on how they hold it of course. A simple single action is the easiest to start with. Once you start painting you will ask yourself why you haven't used an airbrush in the past. You will most likely purchase more one airbrush, but you will most likely never get rid of your single action. That will be your go to brush for general work.

TazMan2000
 
My first double action was a Paasche VLS. Very easy to use. So that's my recommendation. Sometimes you can find bundles with air compressors too.
 
What’s a good low cost compressor?


Where will you be doing the majority of your painting- in the house or outside?

You can get a hobby sized compressor fairly cheap, but I wouldn't recommend them myself. If there was a chance I was painting indoors I would get a small Jun-air, which is a silent compressor on the pricier side (I think I paid $300+ twenty years ago for a 1/2 gallon tank. Still runs fine).

If you don't mind loud, California Air makes very solid compressors that you can get in the $100-150 range that will have 4-5 gallon tanks. for smaller scale painting, a four gallon tank set with a psi of about 40-60 will last a while before the compressor needs to kick on. That will make it an intermittently silent unit.

I've used those for work, in highly intensive situations with 3 to 4 brushes on one unit running all day. They've held up beautifully. When my Jun-air goes, that will be my next one.

You can get them at Lowes and online at wal-mart.

Also, put me in the camp of recommending you get a dual action brush to start and learn how to use that. Lots of simple exercises that you can master in a short time, and the dual action will give you the most precision.
 
My two cents... Dual action is great, and doesn't take much practice to get the hang of, but the single action has its merits too. It requires manually dialing in the right flow and learning how much pressure to apply to the button to get the desired spray, but for modeling it works well, and even Adam Savage suggests that in most instances a single action is all that is needed. I'd definitely recommend looking around (YouTube tutorials are great) to see which style would work best (both utility and price wise) for your needs.

As for compressors I really can't say. I use a mid size compressor dialed way down for airbrushing. It works great, but it's really loud when it kicks in, lol
 
I've used everything from the Testors airbrush that you hook up to a can of air (or spare tire in my case) to an Iwata Micron. Don't cheap out on your tools or you will just become discouraged. I would recommend an Iwata Eclipse with the bottle feed. Great brush that will do everything from fine lines to large area coverage:

https://www.amazon.com/Iwata-Medea-...pID=31fIey3W44L&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

BTW, you can get good low-cost compressors at Harbor Freight. I've been using one I bought there for years.
 
Iwata Neo Gravity Feed is definitely the way to go. I don't know why anyone would want a single action airbrush.

Because is easier to clean up. The one you mention looks like a nice unit but reading through some reviews long term reliability seems spotty in some cases. The Paasche looks to be sturdier and better overall quality. It has years of proven reliability behind it. I bought a nice dual action unit but always come back to the single action. Its a real workhorse.
 
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