Monday, February 22, 2021

Airbrush test Part 2

You might remember that a few weeks ago, I tried out a cheap airbrush with hand-held compressor. 

If you didn't the post is here, go and have a look. 

Several posters asked some interesting questions and made helpful suggestions for further tests, and finding myself with a simple spray job to carry out, I decided to look into this further. 


 First, we have Humbrol Track Colour paint sprayed on to some paper using my Iwata airbrush. I don't look after it properly, but it gives perfectly acceptable results. The only limiting factor is my skill.

The same paint from the cheapo airbrush. This was connected to an airline from the same Sparmax compressor. You can see the difference. Initial impressions that the airbrush is rubbish are confirmed it appears. Well, unless you want to splatter things. 

This time, we have the Iwata connected to the cheapo hand-held compressor. Not bad at all. I happily sprayed several bits of track brown with the setup and I'd do it again. This is basically what I bought the cheapo airbrush for in the first place - portable spray painting. 

The solution seems to be Iwata combined with hand-held compressor. But I now wonder if the rubbish airbrush can be fettled. I need to look into this and see if anything can be done. It's not like I can make things worse after all!



3 comments:

Luke Stevens said...

The other videos I've seen seem to suggest that the compressor is worth having but the airbrush is rubbish. I'll be interested to see if you can make it a quarter decent! And thank you for tackling this. It's nice not just to have a "talking head" giving an opinion but to get one from a fellow modeller whose judgment is trustworthy and reasonably reliable!

Luke

Anonymous said...

Hello Phil, strange how your initial thoughts can be completely wrong. I really thought that the compressor was the issue in your first test. How could an airbrush be so that bad. However the proof is in the pudding as they say and thanks for this as it is one of those items that is temptingly tempting to buy as the potential uses are endless but looks like it would be best just to buy the compressor (for a trusted airbrush) if you can buy it separately? Woody.

Christopher said...

I was convinced that the mini compressor was the weak link, but your tests seem to confirm that it was the airbrush. Actually, this is a better outcome as I might consider getting one for the rechargeable compressor to use on my two existing airbrushes... Good luck in trying to get anything apart from a splatter out of the airbrush!