Model Railroading > Best Airbush

I'm getting ready to paint now after beginning the stripping process (thanks to all for the help), and I was wondering what is the most recommended airbrush for painting models. I've heard good things about Pasche, but also something with regard to their brushes not handling a certain kind of paint. Any help or advice would be appreciated.


Thanks,
SH

SH,the passche is a fine air brush. One thing is,
are you spraying water or Oil base?. If it's oil base,
the external mix air brush will work ok for Oil and water base, but the water base will build up on the tip which will require wiping the tip of paint drips / over spray. This is ditto for all brands of air brushes when using water base paints.
The larger the tip the better for water base.
With oil base you can spray a finer pattern.
Internal mix air brushes are best used with Oil base paints.
Remember to clean the tool after its use.
I have a wet towel handy and wipe the tip off in between spraying parts, while using water base paints to keep the tip clean.
Air pressure I use is around 35psi. but may vary up or down.

Good luck
Tony Czuleger
Belmont Shore RR Club.

I strongly recommend the Badger 200-20 Detail airbrush. The 200-20 is a single action internal mix airbrush that was released by Badger in 2002 and is specifically designed for use with both acrylics and solvent based paints. I have used other airbrushes from Badger, Paasche and Aztek in the nearly 25 years I have been doing model painting and the Badger 200-20 is the best airbrush I have used so far. It is great for both general model painting and fine detail work.

And you can't go wrong with Badger--should you ever have a problem the Badger people provide great customer service.

Chris Toth

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Just for the record, I use an external mix Paasche Air Brush(H model) and its awesome. It handle's water and oil based paints extremely well and there is no dripping or wiping needed. I use an external for the ease of clean up and simplicity of assembly. There are plenty of good choice's, good luck!

Bruce Friedman

PS - It's also Paasche's 100th anniversary this year. Pretty cool.

http://www.paascheairbrush.com/

Hi!

My only problem with the internal mix was that the internal spring would stay wet after use and would eventually (about a year) totally rust out and disappear. As long as you know that, you can get spare springs and be ready.

The external single action Pasche is my current brush, and it unclogs easily, a good thing for those weathering with latex paints.

All brushes work fine, but I've never been hampered by the lack of the double action feature. With water based paint I spray at full air and control the mix with the amount of thinner.

Tony Burzio
San Diego, CA

PAASCHE, nothing will out perform them. I use the external mix and its still going strong after a few decades of use. I tried a Badger, but wasn't as happy with it.
I guess there is a reason Paasche has been around 100 years and not really changed to much!
I can clean my paasche in about 30 seconds, and have it put away.
I stick with external mix just for the ease of use.

Go to dixiearts.com and checkout what's available, I'd recommend the paasche VL three tip set or the badger 155 brush , they're about $60 each including postage......dave

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. I'm not familiar with whether Polyscale and Floquil are oil or water based, but my guess is that Polyscale is water and Floquil is oil. I'm leaning towards Floquil paints.

I'm looking forward to this project's completion (I'll post pics), especially seeing the engines turn from one railroad to shells and then something totally different. Thanks for all the input folks...


SH

Hi SH, Pollyscale is water based, at one time floquil was laquer based and the standard model railroad paint, but they now call it "enamel" so I'm not sure what it is, I haven't bought any floquil for years. If you want a solvent based paint scalecoat is very good. pollyscale and other water based paints are harder to learn but they have big advantages in ease of clean up and lack of solvent fumes. For many years I used only floquil but I've switched to pollyscale now for 95% of my painting and use scalecoat ocassionally....dave