Hi Mitchell.
As Karl said it is a personal choice as to what airbrush you use and I agree completely. Badger, Thayer & Chandler (Badger), Iwata, Paasche, and many others are all excellent airbrushes that have large followings with each brand.
I am faithful to Badger because they make a great product, their service is the best....period, and they are American made.
That does not mean that they are the "best" or even better than any of the other brands that I mentioned, they are just my personal choice and it would be virtually impossible to sway me to another brand.
Let me quote my buddy who has been airbrushing for over 40 years now and told me this in an email once:
QUOTE: The fact of the matter is that I have not only tried, but own at least two of every airbrush made. And the main reason that I don't use most of them beyond testing is that they don't feel good in my hand. I can make any airbrush (even a $9.95 cheapy) do ANYTHING I want it to do to the finest detail.
And I wil be the first to say that the Iwata and her cousins are the best machined airbrushes in the world except for the Sotar. They are great airbrushes. But the T&Cs have many advantages over them.
I try not to badmouth any particular airbrush, they all have their place and no two people have exactly the same preferences. There are some companies that conduct business practices that I don't care for, but I keep that to myself. All of the major airbrush manufacturers send me free airbrushes in hopes of getting me to endorse their products. I always give them a fair test, but have yet to be swayed from Thayer. I was however a diehard VL user until the Vegas came out and changed my mind. |
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I agree completely with his comments. That being said, I would recommend a gravity-feed airbrush personally because I like their ability to spray at lower pressures reliably, they are a little easier to clean when finished, and you can put just a few drops of paint into them for touch-up work and not have to dirty a color cup or glass/plastic jar like you would with a siphon feed.
If you decide on a gravity-feed model my choices would be the Omni 4000, Badger 100LG, or Iwata HP-CS.
If you think a siphon-feed model would suit you better then my choices personally are the Badger Anthem 155, Omni 3000, Vega 2000, or the Iwata Eclipse. The Paasche VL and Badger Crescendo are also very popular, but they have a fatter body and are less comfortable to me personally. Some people prefer their shape though and won't use anything else.
I hope this helped out somewhat.
Mike
“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not
to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools
for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know
how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. " Charles Spurgeon