Is This the Right Airbrush for Me?

I'll second the NEO for Iwata.  with a coupon at Michaels (especially the 50 or 60% off ones) it is very affordable.

I will also second the advice to stay away from cheap. The needle and nozzle of the cheap airbrush will probably disappoint you because of the poor quality control.  Last year I used coupons at Michael's to buy a Badger Anthem and NEO BC.  I'm not in the least disappointed in them.

Best advise I can give you is get a Badger airbrush. Save yourself money, time and grief and skip the cheap Chinese junk that will  not give you not the best performance and will not last.

My first airbrush was a Badger purchased in the mid 1970s and I still use it along with several others I have. Can’t beat a Badger in value and quality. For a compressor I use a Campbell Housefeld 10 gallon  I bought at Walmart 12 years  ago along with a regulator and moisture trap.

Pretty much any airbrush is better than no airbrush at all. Certainly better than spray cans. You will learn the basics of airbrushing. How to use and clean it. How to thin paint and adjust air pressure. How to use the trigger right and the distance from the kit you should spray at. All these things you need to begin to figure out somehow. Even the best airbrush won't perform well if you haven't got the basics down. You will know when you are ready to move up. The Iwata Neo at hobby looby is a good step up with their prpetual 40% off coupon, but that is for later. Learn with this, get comfortable, and enjoy building. This setup is just fine.

I have 3 badger 200's. They work like a single-action but have a knob that controls the flow, thus giving you a hybrid double-action. They are relatively cheap. I got mine at Michaels with a 40% off coupon. It was on sale too!

If the one you posted is what you can reasonably afford it appears to be a good starter combo. That said, I would recommend that you save your money until you can afford a "good" setup. The compressor can be anything as long as you can regulate the pressure to provide a steady flow of air at 15-25 psi.

The AB is a differant story. Start with the best one you can afford, and grow with it. Learning to use an airbrush can frustrating enough without equipment problems. My first one took a lot of practice to master, but it was (is) a quality, name brand brush with easy spare parts availability and popular support for help.

Happy modelling & Happy New Year!

Mike   

I agree with what fox and others said. Master brand are garbage but it can be a good starting point for you to learn how to use one before upgrading to a better one. My first AB was a Paasche single action. My first dual action is a NEO Iwata I have yet got the chance to use or try out.

I started with really basic airbrushes, can't even remember what they were now, but they were cheap, poor quality and with bad to worse performance. That was so disappointing and discouraging, that I often thought airbrushing is just not going to work for me

Then I invested in a moderately priced airbrush, a Binks Wren. Very well made and it performed well for me, I still have it after nearly 50 years later. That made airbrushing so enjoyable for me, and I soon realized that you get what you pay for, cheap is usually not going to come with satisfactory results.

Now, after owning Paasche, Badger, Binks, Iwata and others, I can appreciate that it's (I think) better to start with an airbrush of good performance, even if you have to save for a bit longer in order to get it. Bad performance just leaves one frustrated with the results, and you don't advance your skills as you learn with something that is substandard.

There are Badger's, (my favorite,) that can be had when the major distributors have sales. I have bought double action internal mix Badger's for as little as $60-70 on sale, they are extremely durable and perform with very good results.

And you can find decent compressors for about $50, I understand that is a fair chunk of change, but a combined price of a bit over $100 is a sound investment, when you consider the results will surely be more likely satisfactory, as opposed to disappointment.

Have a good look at "Don's Airbrush" website, just Google that and you'll find some extremely valuable information about all things related to airbrushing. Well with the time investment.

Good luck in your future.

Patrick

I started with a similiar combo, still use the compressor, but the Master brushes are a crapshoot ,I kept one of three after cobbling all three into one I use all the time. 

I'm no expert on airbrushes by any stretch of the imagination but I'll give you my  for what it's worth these days. Practice with the one you've bought. Go to the Airbrushing section of these forums and ask the same question. The members there will probably give you tons and tons of various answers. Study their answers while you practice with what you've got. When you really feel comfortable with the one you've got, then pick something else from all the suggestions you get there. The best airbrush (whatever that may be) will only be as good as the person using it. I started with a cheapie and after I learned how to use it, how to mix the paint, how to controll the airflow for what I wanted to do, then I moved on to what (to me) is a beter one. I'm learning a lot using it and maybe I'll get another one some day. Maybe not. You're the only one that can know what's good for you and when but the members here can help you make a good informed decision.

Hope this helps you a little.

Jim