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Here's a cautionary tale for all of us. I was painting along Wednesday night and dropped my good airbrush. My habit is to leave the tail off exposing most of the needle out the back and I never use the nozzle suppressor thingies either. Dangerous? My middle name is danger, but is hyphenated to read danger-dumbutt. Being configured this way the cg was way past the aft limit and it went in tail first. The AIB determined the this class a mishap was undeniably aircrew error only partially mitigated by interference from gravity, which sucks. What to do? Oh what to do? I cried. I hit Model Paint Solutions for replacements of the needle and knozzle and what-not and the total $ amount flummoxed my extraordinarily cheap ass. As I pondered and pondered I thought popped into my defective little brain. What about this newer generation of little fish tank compressors? I'm easily distracted you see. I got all googled up on reviews and that Gaahleri serene air kept coming up. It was on sale and included an airbrush that I presumed would be fine for spraying styreneze and tile grout. Plus the whole deal was the same price as the H&S replacement parts. I ordered it on the basis that it came with another airbrush that I didn't need and that it probably wouldn't work worth a darn. And, that there was no way in the world that the compressor could do anything at all. (These considerations maintain top priority in all of my purchasing and problem solving matrices.) The thing showed up. I put it together and fired it up. Wow! I exclaimed. This ain't too bad! Here's what I've discovered about this goofy setup- it's pretty darn good all things considered. What are the considerations you ask? The compressor is a demand type obviously so it runs when you command air. [I had to look that up on wiki.] The implication here is that using it to hose down your 32nd C-5 will melt it into slag if you do it in one go. Even a lot of goes, probably. It's somewhat quieter than my generic 1/5 horse with the 1 litre tank no name, but what isn't? I can't distinguish between a decibel and a dinner bell so I'm no help in that dept. My wife says it's not too bad, but she married me so take her comment as you will. The airbrush that came with it illuminates the full operational truth of the compressor. I tried my normal back up ab and it sprayed well but the air pressure output was a touch low. I could work with it by changing thinning, working in closer and the other natural stuff you do. Once I was calibrated to the setup I thought it all worked well. I tried another ab I have which is one of those that are swappable between .0002 and 50000.00 do everything poorly ones. That struggled with its biggest .05. The total volume of air that the airbrush is built to handle showed. It was perfectly workable by adjusting thinning and stuff. I finally slapped the included ab on it. Night and day difference in air flow on all output settings. In fact, almost too much even at the lowest pressure. Again by self adjusting to it, it works great. Conclusions- not a bad little backup. Too loud to use at 2am when everyone is asleep but otherwise fine. If you are new to blah blah it's a good intro kit. As to the old, "can you get it to spray that luftwaffle squiggly mottled camo pattern?" No, you have to make that happen. The good news is that if you can, it will. Still haven't bought the H&S replacement parts....

A couple of years ago I got back into the hobby after many years away. Like most returnees I grabbed a kit, some glue, an airbrush (Sparmax 3.5) and some Vallejo paint and proceeded to have fun. I've built about 10 kits 1/32, 1/35 and 1/48 so far. I've been trolling the web for technical tips and tricks all the way along, especially on airbrushing. Getting Vallejo Air to blow through my airbrush at a reasonably low pressure for laying on detail with any kind of consistency for more than 45 seconds is/was impossible. I tried all of the tricks that I read, thin to skim milk (what?) low pressure (6-8 psi) add flow aid, only use the manufacture's thinner, prime don't prime etc. As time has gone on I've experimented with Vallejo, AK, Italeri, and good old Tamiya. So far Tamiya has sprayed the best of the lot it doesn't tip dry as fast and it does seem to self level a bit. However, the whole time I thought the ultimate problem was the airbrush. I have abused it pretty badly using all kinds of chemicals to clean it. Paint thinner, straight ammonia, something called metholated spirits, and then all of the other normal manufacturer's thinners. Through poor handling I've bent the needle a little and over time I've pushed the needle too far and have opened up the nozzle wider that it ought to be etc. In spite of or maybe because of all my experimentation and persistence I'm not too bad at painting now. At this stage of its life my original airbrush was never going to get better so I broke down and bought a Harder & Steenbeck Evolution. The Evolution showed up a couple of days ago and I shot paint on a Tamiya ME-262 I'm building. I've always base coated in a dark color and painted thin and small over that layer to create effects. To do that I really thin the paint, lower the pressure and spray close. Well using Vallejo Model Air paint, their airbrush thinner and their flow improver and the new airbrush really didn't change anything. I get a few seconds of acceptable spray then nothing, wipe the tip blow it out repeat.... All of the same issues happen with the new airbrush. My next experiment is going to be Mission Model Paints based on what I've read...

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