Airbrush Shopping

I’ve done something that I’ve wanted to do for years: buy an airbrush and a compressor. It’s not that I haven’t owned an airbrush before, but life’s necessities and demands for well over a decade kept pushing it to the side. Sure, whenever I had a small painting project I’d think that it would be nice to fire up the ol’ airbrush (which I discovered a few years ago cemented with paint), but I never really had the incentive to jump in with both feet.

It’s not hard to guess that the inciting incident for my purchase is the fact that I use an airbrush in my little job. Not only has it rekindled my interest, but I also want to extend the services of the business once I’m up and running.

I finally decided to buy an Iwata Eclipse HP-CS. It’s the large-cup-on-top version of the bottle-on-the-bottom model we use at work. Iwata is a leader in airbrushes, so quality wasn’t a concern — the mode of paint feeding was. You see, I’ve always used the siphon-fed brushes with the bottle on the bottom, and I almost chose that model for my purchase (that it was cheaper didn’t hurt). But, I do plan on using many different paints in my brush, and I couldn’t see having all of these bottles sitting around in addition to the paint bottles I have to store. After many weeks of reading glowing reviews of the HP-CS, that’s the one I chose to go with.

As for the air source. Oh, what a crap-shoot is there. If you go on most airbrush forums, there is a lot of talk about only using four-or-five specific brands of compressors (most made by airbrush companies). There is some mention of hardware store compressors, but the discussion isn’t always pretty. It usually boils down to: “Don’t you think we all want to do this cheaper? Buy the airbrush brands, they are the only ones that will make you happy.” Now, that might very well be the case. I also get the feeling that there is a small amount of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) going on that is so commonly used as a poison-pen in discussions in the computer world. So, I decided to take a little bit of a risk. I’ve opted for a refurbished Campbell Hausfeld FP2040 compressor. It looks like it will deliver enough air to do t-shirts (if I want) as well as being reasonably quiet. A few people in airbrush forums seem happy enough with this model. Sure, I’m a little cautious about it being a refurb, but I’ve generally had good luck with refurbs so I think the savings in this case are worth the risk. More importantly, if I’m wrong, I’m not out too much money (the airbrush-specific brands recommended for shirts would cost seven-times as much).

In a week or so, as the items come in, we’ll find out if I made good purchasing decisions or not. I’ll keep you posted.