Hmmmm. Do none of the guys in the FineScale forums use Badger airbrushes? I've had a Crescendo 175 model (nice weighted hand-piece, double-action) for about
10 years, and I absolutely love it. At the time, it seemed to be a lot nicer than the other Badger models like the popular 150. I didn't have to pay too much for it, either (cost about $80, as I recall). I had a small compressor already that was lying around at an uncle's house, so I went to a Lowe's home center, and bought a filter/water trap/regulator unit made by Jet, and some brass fittings to adapt the different pipe/tubing sizes between the compressor outlet, the filter and the airbrush hose, and I was good to go.
I've sprayed solvent-based paints like Floquil and ScaleCoat out of it, and water-based ones like Poly S, with equally nice success.
Are these Aztecs really some quantum leap in quality above something like the Crescendo?