Well all that has inspired me to go and strip down, deep clean & lube my brushes!

Sorry, lots of emails at work interfering with the important stuff.


1.) How much exactly is your budget?


Maybe a 100 pounds? Could be more, but I'd like to keep it around it.


2.) What airbrush items do you already have? (compressor, hose/fittings, cleaners, paint mask, paint booth, etc)

I've been airbrushing for a while now; I do have a compressor, fume hood, a couple of cheap single action/double action airbrushes, but I do have issues when it comes to do anything else but spraying wide areas/masked camos. I can do those. Free-hand fine work -not so much. In fact right now I'm not even sure how to clean the inside of a double action properly, as I have no brushes so thin to get into the place of the needle. (I don't have a sonic cleaner, and I can't think of anything else to use...)


OK, you are not a novice.
You know enough to spot some troubles on the horizon and you are good with base coats.
What's next is the plunge into detail painting. You already have an airbrush for base coats and now you need to get a gravity fed, double action, .3mm nozzle, medium to fine line, kick ass airbrush.
I have slowly worked through various quality levels of airbrushes. I look back and cringe at the money I wasted by moving up in small steps. This is one of those tools that you need get a good one and be done with it.
I currently own an Iwata Hi Line HP CH. It is a fantastic, very versatile airbrush. I can do any of the effects I see in the armor magazines. My only limit is a steady hand and my imagination.
I just looked on line and I quickly found one for $147 new, US Dollars.
You have arrived at the point you need to make the leap to a good airbrush.

I have a seven years Harder-Steenbeck Evolution Silverline and two months ago i bought another - but oldest model Evolution (within Silverline). Harder-Steenbeck have very simple maintenance - you needn't any tool for removal, jet is self-centered (not screw).... Cost is between 70-100 pounds.

I bought an Iwata Neo. It's a very nice AB. Has a nice weight/feel to it. I bought it on eBay for $50.

Thank you for the sound advice. As in many things in life, I realize you do sometimes need to buy the more expensive to save on buying crap later You are absolutely correct, and thank you for the advice. As for the 0.3 nozzle -what use 0.2 nozzles have?

That depends on what you want to do. The smaller the nozzle the thinner the paint, the smaller the pigments need to be. That means the opacity drops. At some point you are spraying ink and not paint. The .3mm Iwata Hi Line HP CH comes with a piece of paper that the factory tested the airbrush on. The finest line on that paper is the width of a pencil line. Between you and me, my hand is not steady enough to do the pencil thin lines constructively. You can get .2mm or a .25 mm nozzle and needles, and I had one of those nozzles but I never used it and eventually got rid of it.

That makes a lot of sense, thank you So .3 should be enough.

I really appreciate your advice (all of yours).

Thank you all.

Hi Andras - just wondering what brush you settled on, and how have you found it so far?