Friday 4 April 2014

Iwata incoming

Oooh, I´'m exited. After some long thoughts and a bit of research i finally decided which airbrush to go for. I had Iwata in mind pretty early since that's the brand that turned up on most searches and seems to be a solid choice. The hard part was to decide which model.

 I tend to go for expensive stuff when I buy something, this is how my mind works; 1. I start looking at the cheapest alternative. 2. I Look at the second cheapest, thinking "Hmm, not a biggie. Lets go for that one instead." Then repeat step 2 untill my bank account reach its pain treshold or no more costly options are available. This time I restrained my impulses to go for the super-mega-top-notch-high-line-model. My vote went for the Iwata Eclipse HP-CS. Not the cheapest one and not the most expensive either. The pro's seem to agree that it´s a good choice for first timers and an allrounder.

Full plate and packing steel


Ordered it from ebay since it's half the price compared to Swedish retailers. I'm a bit worried though since I noticed that the description says that it got a 0.3mm nozzle and as far as I know they only come with .35mm. It's new and unopened so it's not modified in any way. Hopefully thats just a mistyping from the seller and not a fraud, fingers crossed. But they had only possitive feedback so I should be okay. Otherwise I'll be forced to make a trip to Tokyo to clear the air with someone.

Also a .3mm could prove to be more of a challenge to use. I know for a fact that airbrushing isn't easy. I got myself a real low budget one many years ago. With low budget I mean really low budget. You know the kind of equipment they make from broken parts that they sweep from the floor. Then put together to some kind of abomination that even the 7:th circle of hell would be proud of.

I was doing mural paintings at that time for a laser tag arena and it wasn't pretty on close inspection, lots of stains and splashes. As I'm older and wiser now (ehr...) I understand that much of my problems then was partially caused by too thick paint in the gun. But my first first tries with the Iwata will probably make puppies cry in despair anyway. I'm not looking for miracles to happen beacuse of the equipment, but it will surely speed up the process with laying the initial shadow and highlights.

2 comments:

  1. Purchase some teflon tape if you don't already have some. Taking the HP-CS apart to clean it will eventually stretch out the o-ring. You can use the o-ring on the handle. That is just postponing either buying o-rings or teflon tape.

    My HP-CS has treated me well.

    You are correct it comes with 0.35mm needle. Why the discrepancy of needle size. If you look through Blick online, and the instructions (when you get it) you'll notice that HP-C and HP-CS share the same parts. You may know HP-C is the next step up.

    Suggestion. When airbrushing put more paint in the colour cup than you think you'll use. After you've covered the model. Grab a piece of paper and use the rest of the paint to make tiny dots then connect them.

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    1. Thank you for the tips. I think i found the problem. I had to go down as low as 10psi or below (recomendend air pressure is 20-60) and then the problems with broken lines disapeared.

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