New to modeling - Purchasing airbrush

H3nav wrote:

Hobby Lobby has the Eclipse HP-CS on sale for around $90.00 with a 40% off coupon! And no, I couldn't pass it up.   E

if it's $90 before the 40% coupon, buy me one too!!!

Hobby Lobby has the Eclipse HP-CS on sale for around $90.00 with a 40% off coupon! And no, I couldn't pass it up.

 

E

I am a newbie too, so I purchased a cheap Testor's "Complete Airbrush System." It's around $120 if you buy it from Towers Hobby. It's not the "Mighty Mini" by the way.

 It comes with a double-action airbrush, compressor, and four interchangeable nozzles. I find it very easy to use and clean up, and gives good results to my amateurish eyes too.

I like iwatas now, and find the quality to be unsurpased.  There are other quality brush companies out there as well.  I have to agree: the CS is a great starter brush, and you'll be pleased.  Great quality.  The HPC/C+/CH is also a great all around brush, with the ability to do some tighter work.  You might get a smaller brush (i.e. a HPB/SB or CM or equivalent) in the future for much more finite work if you wnat to do that. 

 

 

 

 

 

The E rating for the CR is due to the larger nozzle opening. It handles a wide range of paints and sprays a line as thin as a sharpie marker makes. I think the CR might be a little better at gloss finishes for auto models. The CS with the smaller nozzle makes a line that is a little wider than a dull pencil. The CS will handle acrylics or enamels just fine. Both work well for flat colors.  Greg

I can't offer comparisons as i have only used the HP-CS.

I have no difficulity painting entire 1/35 tanks or doing fine detail work (the finest line i can do with it right now is a thick pencil line, but i have little pratice at this).

If you get the HP-CS as your first airbrush, you will be very happy with it.

Hey gjek, thanks for the info. Glad to see someone from Tacoma...I just moved from there about 4 months ago. Anyways, I noticed that the Iwata charts on their website say that the CS has a rating of "G" for good in their category for models and the CR gets an "E" for excellent. Not sure if this is good to go by or not. But I guess if you have used one and they do about the same thing I can't argue with that. I see a $40 difference between the two and am willing to dish out the extra if it is worth it. Would you spring for it if the $40 wasn't an issue? I talked to the guys over at aibrush-depot.com (great support by the way) and he mentioned I could go with the CS and just get a .5 needle/nozzle for it if need be. Thanks for everyones help in this new learning process.

Don't panic, the CS or the CR will  do fine for what you want to do. Stick with the cup on top.I have a CR and an HP-C. The CR has a .5mm nozzle opening, will spray 99% of what you want to do just fine and costs less. The CS will spray a little finer line, has a .35 nozzle opening, will do probably 100% of what you want but costs a little more. Check out Dixie Art for costs. Plan to order acessories at the same time and save $10 on shipping costs. orders over $50 are free but if you order an airhose or spare needle later you might see $10 shipping fee added.

Thanks so much for the valuable information. It seems as if CR is the way to start heading towards. On that note I called the guy from airbrush-depot.com this morning to ask a couple questions and we talked about the CR being a good choice. He also did mention the CS that you talked about as well but I still wasn't too sure about the overall difference between CR and CS.

He explained that the CR is good but that the fine detail would not be there like you might get from the CS. He said if I was running enamels to choose the CR as well (please correct if this is wrong). This in turn made me ask if I would even be able to use the CS to cover a 1/48 aircraft if this airbrush is for detailing, but didn't get a full answer. I guess the needle is slightly larger on the CR, therefore making it a little less able to hit the fine points.

So now I am really confused because I want detail but I don't have the experience yet to know how much detail I might need for modeling aircraft. Would the CR still give a rookie the much needed finer points? Or is it better to go for the CS because detail is more important than coverage? Anyone that can chime in on this with the experience of both would be great. Thanks

First of all, thanks for providing specific questions since open ended stuff tend to get lots of junk suggestions.  From my painting experience, I personally would recommend the CR over the BCR for reasons as following:  BCR being siphon-feed require you to operate at a higher pressure, though the larger paint storage will allow for larger area painting, you will be losing the better details sprayed at lower pressure the CR would bring you.  Detail painting would be rather important if you do German aircrafts with mottles for camo which you can't really mask easily.  At the same time, the paint cup on the CR actually holds a lot of paint and will be able to cover a full body on a 1/48 WWII fighter.  Though the BCR allows you to change the paint on the fly, I don't see what the point is for scale modeling, since you have to wait for the current layer of paint to dry to go on the next anyways.  The siphon tube itself is relatively more annoying to clean as opposed to the paint cup on the CR, which you just pour the paint out and wipe with a towel and you are already 80% done.  I mix my paint in separate jars I bought from Pearl art supply store for like under 80 cents so the paint color consistency is still there.

Another suggestion for the airbrush choice is that if you do enamel paints from say ModelMaster lines, it might be better to get a HP-CS from the eclipse series due to the self-centering nozzle actually make cleaning a slightly easier chore, yet still fine enough to do most work on a 1/48 aircraft and basic camo for 1/72 scale.