H0e forest railways with H0 branch line

[Martijn Meerts]

To be honest, I struggle more with installing couplers than I do with soldering trains these days 😄

 

 

Again, no progress last weekend, spend most of it building and setting up a new PC.. My 7 year old iMac started having issues with some programs / games I run, so it was finally time for a new one. Since Macs are getting ridiculously expensive, I opted for components, and build something myself.

 

I the upcoming week, I'll try to temporarily connect the motor of the Hokutan #2, so I can give it a quick go to see if it runs (without drive rods of course) and afterwards start preparing the frame for priming. That means another bath in the ultrasonic cleaner, masking where needed, metal primer, and a few coats of regular (probably grey) primer. After that it's painting, and then finding some reference material so I can weather the frame before sealing it all with a clear coat.

 

I'm also looking into maybe doing a little bit of a custom colouring scheme, just some minor details here and there painted in specific colours. Just a little touch to really make it my own little fictional railroad company. Of course, the Hokutan #2 does come with the Hokutan emblem, so might need to figure something out there. Maybe come up with an emblem, although in that case I need to come up with a name first.

 

Of course, the branch line will be JNR, just the narrow gauge one will be fictional. Any tips and suggestions are welcome 😉

 

[Martijn Meerts]

So, I was looking at glueing the worm gears onto the motor axles to test the Hokutan's frame and see if it runs before I continue. The fact that the gears don't come pre-attached is really 1 of my biggest dislikes of the World Kougei kits I have, but I do understand why they don't do it. I always worry a little bit that the gear won't stick well enough, even though I've been using epoxy to glue them on for previous kits I've done.

 

Anyway, I wanted to glue them on, but noticed that my epoxy had expired, so I need to go get a new pack. The weather here has been terrible though, so I've not yet taken a trip to the hardware store to pick that up, and I've been home ill/overworked for a few days as well.

 

The only progress I've made is actually on the model train database. I've refactored a few things to use a different CSS library and spent a bit of money on some professionally designed components on top of that CSS library. This will help quite a bit with getting a working prototype up and running relatively quick, that even looks decent and is fully responsive. Spare time remains limited, and I'm still dividing it between various hobbies, but I do hope to finally get something online within a few months that is usable, and which I can continue to build on (yes, I've said that before ;))

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Worm gears have been glued on. Interestingly, they stick out from the axle a little bit, whereas in previous kits I build, you just glue them so the end of the worm gear lines up with the end of the axle. Glued them on yesterday during the day, so I haven't actually ran it yet, figured I'd let it dry well before running. Didn't take any pictures either, since it's not really spectacular seeing a worm gear glued onto an axle 😄

 

Tonight I'm going to give it a little test on a simple oval of track, and as long as it runs well enough, I can start preparing it for priming and painting. I should be able to do the metal primer during the week, and then do the actual grey primer next weekend.

 

Another thing I need to figure out is any possible lights. Going by the images of the replica, it didn't have any lights at all, so I might just skip them. Of course, since this loco will be part of the fictional railway, I can do what I want 🙂  Since I plan to give it a wooden floor and 3d printed interior detail, I might at least add a little LED to the cab and possibly another one in the firebox in case I ever want to do the flickering firebox thing.

[Martijn Meerts]

Gave the frame a quick check up and tested that there were no shorts. Then quickly connected the motor and give it a short run on a simple oval of Tillig tt-scale track.

 

It took a little push and a bunch of power to get it moving, but after a couple of laps at speed, it already started running somewhat more smooth. It's a bit noisy and stutters, but that does make sense considering I haven't added any oil and grease, nor have I fine tuned all the gears. Most of the gears have a bit of molding flash on them, so they need some quick sanding. The weight of the shell should also help with improved running, and of course the decoder with power pack will help with smooth slow speed running.

 

The next step now is preparing everything for priming and painting. The frame consists of several parts that are screwed together, so I'll likely paint each part separately and then assemble everything. Then after assembly I'll do some weathering and then seal it all with a clear coat. It's probably going to be quite a lot of work to get that all done.

 

I've also been looking at maps and such of Japan, to see if I could find something to base the name of the fictional railway on. Couldn't really find anything, but then I started thinking about it a bit. I want the railway to be based on the various forest railways of Japan, so rather than naming it for a specific area, why not go for Japan Forest Railway. Obviously, in English that's a bit boring, but in Japanese it's quite nice when using the old name for Japan. So, the railway is likely going to be "Yamato Shinrin Tetsudo".

 

An added fun part, is that you can read it in 2 ways:

Yamato Shinrin Tetsudo (大和森林鉄道) which would make it Yamato Forest Railway

Yama to Shinrin Tetsudo (山と森林鉄道) which would make it Mountain and Forest Railway

 

(People who actually know Japanese, correct me if I'm wrong 😉 )

[Martijn Meerts]

Had a little bit of time yesterday evening. Looked into the frame in detail a little bit more to check if I'm not missing any parts before starting the preparations for priming. there's a couple of brackets that basically (in the prototype) support the weight of the water tanks. On the prototype those obviously are mounted on the frame, but on the model it doesn't make much of a difference. The floor plate of the shell does have holes in it for lining up the brackets, so they're probably meant to be soldered to the shell. In a way that makes sense, considering that also allows you to line up the shell with the frame a bit easier.

 

I've also started working on the inside wall of the water tank. I increased the existing cutout by about 2mm to create a slightly bigger gap so I can place a decoder in the water tank after assembly. After a quick test-assembly, it doesn't look like increasing the cutout makes it visible when looking at the loco from the outside, so that's good. For the other water tank, I need to do the same for the sidewall, but also need to cut a little extra out of the floor. Since the motor isn't centred, the cutout for the motor isn't either. That worked great for the right water tank, but for the left one it doesn't leave enough of a gap.

 

Once the water tanks are adjusted, it's a pretty straight forward build to complete the shell. Or at least, to the point of where World Kougei intends the shell to be. I'll be adding more details of course 🙂

 

I'll see if I can take some pictures tonight of the progress and then update this post with them.

 

 

Edit: And here are the images

 

Test assembly of the main frame, pistons and motor. Also some temporary wiring to see if it all runs, which it  does.

 

 

Difference between the inner walls of the water tanks. To the right I increased the size of the cutout, to the left the original. It''s only about a 2mm difference, which after some initial testing looks to be enough.

 

 

Quick test assembly of the water tank. You can't really see the larger cutout, so this should work out well. Worst case, I can add some additional detail like stepping plates or something in between the water tank and boiler.

 

 

Bottom of the test assembly, showing the opening where I should now be able to install the decoder, and actually be able to remove it should it need replacing / maintenance. The other side will get a similar cutout, but in that case it's for the power pack board. The power pack capacitor will be installed in the smoke box. 

 

 

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Pretty much no progress again. I did add a decoder with power pack to the test setup and gave that a go. With the default decoder settings and still no oiling / greasing where needed, it already runs pretty smooth. The power pack helps a lot with slow running and I'd definitely pick a power pack over a sound decoder any time.

 

I did start looking at assembling the shell, which I said was going to be pretty straightforward. Turns out I was very wrong 😄

 

There's not really any order in which to install stuff, so it's a lot of puzzling and test fitting. Some parts of the loco are also almost unreachable with a soldering iron, no matter in which order you build the thing. Adding details to the cab is especially going to be fun, not to mention painting it all.

 

With all the things going on in the world, work has actually been pretty hectic the past weeks, and will probably remain so for a while longer. I've been working from home the past 2 weeks, but I don't really have any more spare time now than when I normally do with the approximately 3.5 hour of commute time each day. I have continued sorting through a lot of the stuff that's stored in the hobby room though, and getting rid of a lot of things. Very slowly but surely I'm getting it back to a point where I can comfortably work in it again.

 

 

There has been some more progress on the online database project though, currently working on the ability to add items to collections, and add information specific to your model. Still quite a bit of work left to do for a usable version, but I try to work on it a little bit each day now.

[Martijn Meerts]

Just a quick, low quality, terrible phone camera picture ..

 

I've been working a little bit on the shell. Everything on the picture is soldered in place now. I'm getting pretty comfortable soldering small parts and the white metal bits, soldering larger pieces is still quite challenging. For example, the outside walls of the water tanks are soldered to the base plate of the shell. I had to pre-tin the pieces, and then try to get them to align up, hold them in place, and heat them up enough to get the solder to melt. Doesn't help there's very little space, and even with my small soldering iron, it was quick challenging.

 

I've also noticed that I need to pay more attention to which order things should go together. Behind the water tank, you can just see the end of a leaf spring sticking out. This thing was really annoying to solder in place because I had soldered the main body onto the base plate. It would've been easier to solder the springs first, then the body.

 

Also, as mentioned in another thread, these close up shots show small little gaps and imperfections really well. It definitely needs some cleaning up and filling of obvious gaps, but the picture does make it look a lot worse than it really is. There are also some dents, scratches and just general damage here and there. I did that on purpose considering I'm going for a look of pretty heavy use and abuse of the rolling stock. I'll leave the boiler pretty much intact though, steam locomotive with a damaged boiler is probably not very safe 😄

 

 

[cteno4]

Looking nice Martijn!

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Still needs a lot of work, and it sure isn't an SL9600, but it's a start 😄

 

I've taken the frame apart again and they're in the ultrasonic cleaner as I'm writing this. The first round is with the special ultrasonic cleaner fluid, after which I'll let them dry a bit, and the go for another round in the ultrasonic cleaner but then with a drop or 2 of dish washing soap instead of ultrasonic cleaner. After that I need to mask off a couple of areas, and then brush on the metal primer.

 

Currently also clearing some space in the hobby room so I can put up my little spray booth a bit more permanently. It's really annoying having to clear the main workbench to make room for the spray booth. I also tested some Vallejo plastic putty on a scrap bit of brass sheet, and somewhat to my surprise, the putty actually sticks rather well, so it should be very much usable for filling some minor gaps.

[cteno4]

Is that the usual metal jewelry cleaning fluid? I’ve wondered how that works, was thinking of it for cleaning parts.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Yep, just the standard jewelry stuff. It seems to work well, doesn't destroy any parts or break any joints or anything. Or at least, not so far ... I use very little little of the fluid diluted in a bunch of water. The only reason I do the dish washing liquid afterwards is to remove any potential residue. It's probably not be necessary, but considering it's hardly any extra work, might as well just do it.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

 

Been working on priming the various parts of the frame. I decided to prime and paint them while completely disassembled rather than building the frame and painting the whole thing in 1 go. This did mean priming it took 2 days though, 1 day for 1 side, then leave it to dry overnight, and then prime the other side. I've used some Blu-tack to hold the parts, but that might not have been the best idea. Blu-tack does contain some sort of oil, and it can leave a residue, however, a lot of modelers use Blu-tack to hold parts while painting, and the stories of residue are mostly talking about using it to tack posters to walls etc. Guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

 

There are a couple of imperfections caused by not so good solder joints, mostly the ones I did before I had some of the additional tools I bought for the SL9600, but those won't be visible after everything is assembled.

 

For tomorrow, I'm hoping to start the actual painting. All of these parts will be mostly black with a few drops of white most likely, just to make it a little less intense. I'm thinking of doing some small detail bits in a different colour, maybe something like a really dark red or burgundy or something similar. On the one hand, I do want this to be a work horse (hence the intentional damage here and there), but on the other hand, I also want the trains to look good, something the employees of the railway would be proud of, so a little bit of flair like some colour accents and things like mahogany floor and roof would probably be a nice touch. All of that can be added later on though. I will at least spray a little black on some scrap bits of cardboard, and play around with a couple of other colours I have around.

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Martijn,

 

might look for museum grade blue tack, sometimes called museum putty or museum tack. It is made not to transfer oils and such to what it’s stuck to. But more expensive but you don’t need much. You are right that cheap blue tack can leave a residue that can stain papers and paints and of course could cause an issue when priming and painting. I’ve had basic blue tack leave stains on both wall paint and paper.

 

i guess test it by pushing it on and off a piece of scrap metal and then try priming and see if that area is prone to coming off with some hard rubbing when dry.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

I primed the other side of the parts shown in the picture, so the side where to Blu-tack was used. So tomorrow will be a good test to see if the primer was affected by the Blu-tack, and whether the Blu-tack currently on the side I primed yesterday will affect the primer. 

 

I have some other, similar stuff, which is a lot less tacky than the actual Blu-tack, so that another something to test. I did use both version on the Tamiya RC tank I built, I used the stuff to make a camouflage pattern. I painted the base colour first, then applied the Blu-tack, and then painted the second colour. I painted that many years ago, and it hasn't affected the paint at all.

 

I might see if I can find some of the museum grade stuff here, but even the regular stuff is hard to find. The one I have I bought way back when I still lived in Norway 🙂

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Did a little more research into the colours used by JNR. I was mostly looking for some colours to use for accents, but then I noticed the list of colours used by JNR also contained an entry for 'black' as used on steam locomotives, but also as frame / undercarriage colour of other locomotives, cars and coaches. What surprised me, is that it's actually much less black than I would expect. The overview lists the colours in several notations, and doing a bit of converting, it looks like JNR black is actually 5 parts black and 1 part white, which would make it much lighter than I would expect.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

So, been giving the Hokutan #2 frame a bit of colour and clear coat, but I'm not too happy with the results. There are a few issues with it actually. The surface isn't very smooth, which is likely caused by too high pressure on the airbrush (somehow this was set to 40psi, which I likely did to use the airbrush as a compressed air cleaner to get rid of dust, and then forgot to dial it back to around 20 psi). This means needing to keep the airbrush pretty far away from the frame to prevent skating / getting blotches. However, doing so also means the paint dries before hitting the surface. Now, since this is the frame, and much won't be visible, that's really not that much of an issue. However, due to the rough texture, applying clear coat also requires more layers to get it to look flat, which is an issue, because you don't want to add too much clear coat either.

 

Another issue is that the Blu-tack I used to hold the parts did leave some minor spots. Again, not that much of an issue considering it's the fame, and it will be hidden mostly. I did give double sided tape a try, but this left some marks as well, which were actually more visible than the Blu-tack ones. I'm currently trying some regular old low-tack masking tape, which seems to work well, but larger / heavier parts can fall off, so I need some popsicle sticks or something so I have a little more surface to stick them on.

 

However, the major issue, is that the paint is just too fragile. I can quite easily scrape it off with my finger nails. For static models I wouldn't be too worried considering you don't handle them, but locomotives tend to be picked up quite a bit, and can of course tip over or drive into things. I'm pretty sure it's not the grey primer I used, considering I used the same primer on some plastic Gundam kits parts, and it sticks much better. I can still scrape it off with my finger nail, but it requires quite a bit of pressure. The Gundam parts can also be sanded without immediately taking off large chunks of primer.

 

So this means that the problem is likely getting the primer to stick to the metal frame. I might not have scuffed it up enough, or maybe the Mr Metal Primer isn't really doing what it's supposed to be doing. 

 

Anyway, it looks like I may need to strip the frame and start over. It's quite a bit of time wasted, but on the other hand, better this happens on the frame only rather than the whole locomotive. The frame should be relatively easy to clean up at least. Of course, I'll be doing a bit of testing on some scrap metal before starting on the frame again. Might also assemble the frame to see how it looks after painting, at least that way it feels there has been some progress 😄

 

Also, if anyone with some experience airbrushing metal kits has any tips, I'd gladly take them 😉

 

 

Edit: Uploaded a picture of the painted and assembled frame. Shame the paint's not sticking well at all, since it does look pretty good ...

[Martijn Meerts]

Today in "The saga of the non-sticking paint" ...

 

After stripping most of the paint from the frame, I started Googling for tips on cleaning and preparing metal for priming. After a couple of hours of not finding anything useful, I came across a video demonstration of a product called 'Metal Prep'. In this video, they used styrene cement to clean a brass detail part for a plastic kit, and then brushed on the Metal Prep on half od the part. Once dry, they painted the whole part, without doing any other priming. Once the paint dried, they started scraping the paint. On the non-prepared half, the paint was coming right off, much like my frame, but on the prepared half, while there were scratches, the paint stuck to the metal.

 

The video was made by someone of a company called "Vantage Modelling Solutions", so figured I'd check their page, and noticed they seem to have quite a good number of really interesting products. Found an online shop in The Netherlands that sells the products, so decided to order some items for testing, including of course the Metal Prep, styrene cement, liquid mask, and some clear coats / varnishes. I also sent them an email with some questions, and they answered quick, and most of all were very honest. They're not pushing their own product, and even recommend alternatives in the comments of several of their videos, which is pretty decent.

 

So, today I got a couple of packages with Metal Prep, cement, and some Vallejo paints. So, went and prepared the metal. First I used a fiber glass pen to scuff the surface a bit, not necessary apparently, but it can't hurt either. Then cleaned the surface with styrene cement, which I still think is a strange idea, but surprisingly it worked really well. I was surprised at how much muck was on the q-tip after wiping off the metal. Finally, applied the Metal Prep with a regular old paint brush. You can just about see where you've applied the stuff after it dries. I believe this is mostly the same as the Mr Metal Primer, but the liquid is a bit less transparent.

 

I let that dry for about half an hour while I was preparing my airbrush, which got clogged up after not cleaning it well after my previous airbrush session. Once done, I used some Vallejo Model Air "sky grey" paint instead of primer. I sprayed it like I normally do (with the PSI set to around 20 instead of 40 ;)) rather than how the video shows it, so multiple thin coats instead of a single heavy coat. I was getting some tip dry, so I'll likely need to order some flow improver and maybe thin the paint a little more. It did go on rather well though, result was pretty smooth for the most part.

 

I tested some brass, stainless steel and the other sheet metal they use (not sure what this is, might be nickel silver or something similar to that). On the nickel silver I pulled back on the trigger a little further for more paint / faster painting, but that didn't go to well. Only did 2 very light coats, just barely covering the metal, and let it dry for maybe about half an hour again. Once the airbrush was all cleaned up again, I give the paint a quick try. Even after drying for only half an hour, the paint was sticking surprisingly well. I could still scrape it off with a toothpic, but definitely needed more force. Rubbing it with my fingers didn't cause any paint to come off at all, and repeatedly sticking on some masking tape and removing it also didn't cause paint to come off. I'm pretty sure once it's cured overnight, it'll be even tougher, and with some clear coat / varnish, it should be pretty tough.

 

So, apart from the tip dry, which should be easily fixed, I'm really rather happy with the results so far. I'll check again tomorrow, and maybe try adding a clear coat to see what does does.

 

[cteno4]

Martijn,

 

bummer on the primer not working well and the blue tack oil.

 

the styrene cement is probably MEK or methylene chloride, solvents that will fuse weld styrene. They are also very good surface cleaners!

 

im wondering if there prep solution is some sort of surface etch solution. Sounds like it works well though. Overnight curing is good with most all paints to really see how well they are are bonded. Warming them a bit can help curing as well.

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Well, it's all still very much trial and error. I had hoped with the Mr Metal Primer and with Vallejo marketing their polyurethane primer as being extra sticky, things would've worked out the first time, but oh well 🙂

 

After curing overnight, the paint on the test parts is definitely tougher. It's still possible to scrape off with my fingernail, but only after repeated passes with some force, and even then it only chips instead of come off in large chunks. Obviously, on the actual model, I'd not be actively trying to chip off the paint, so I'm pretty confident the paint on the final model will be fine, especially after multiple clear coats and some weathering.

 

The styrene cement is really just plastic cement like Tamiya, Gunze, Revell, etc. have as well, it's just that the bottle is bigger, and costs less. As for the metal prep, I do believe it's partially an etching primer, but with some added components to make it self levelling and quite thin. It also dried pretty fast, so on larger pieces you need to be pretty quick.

 

Have a look at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQoPrdvl5CcMKIyVnS2VVlg , it's the YouTube channel of the company making this stuff, they have some really interesting pigments for weathering as well. I'm definitely grabbing a few of those at some point.

 

[cteno4]

Yeah most of the styrene welding cements are just methyl ethyl ketone or methylene chloride. They are good surface cleaning solvents too boot being good extractors of waxes and oils. They are just standard styrene welding cements as they dissolve styrene well! 

 

is the mr primer and vantage water based or organic solvent based? 
 

I guess most of all the metal painting I’ve done has been larger stuff and start with a plain old lacquer based primer that really sticks.

 

new stuff sounds like it may be doing the trick. Might experiment with a little warmth with curing. Also giving more time for the primer to really cure and all its solvent (organic or water) to get out before the paint coats.

[Martijn Meerts]

Judging by the smell, it's solvent based. The Mr Metal Primer actually smells quite a lot like styrene cement interestingly enough. The metal prep does smell a little different, but still fairly closely to styrene cement.

 

Lacquer based primer / paint would be a lot easier to get to stick to both plastic and metal. The smell is quite a lot worse though, and airbrush maintenance would take a lot more time. You really need to clean them well, otherwise you'll end up needing to replace the rubber rings far too often. So for the painting side of things, I'll try to stick with acrylics. I did actually notice 1 of my airbrush needles seems a bit damaged, so might need to get a replacement for that.

 

The new stuff works well enough, even after not giving things that much time to cure. I'm quite happy with it. Also, this is just a very thin coat of paint, basically acting like a grey primer. On the actual models, I'd do a couple of thin coats of light grey paint as primer instead of actual primer, then several thin coats of the actual colour, then a clear coat / varnish, then work on weathering / filtering, and then another clear coat / varnish to seal the weathering. So once all that stuff's on, it should be a pretty decent protective layer 🙂

 

I'm also still very much learning how to really use the airbrush, I've used it a lot for simple stuff like just painting larger surfaces, or simple models. This frame is already a bit more difficult since it's multiple parts, and the shell with be even more interesting, since there are interior bits that are difficult to reach since they're mostly closed off. In the end though, I'll get there. Might take a few attempts, but eventually it'll work, and then I'll have the skills / confidence to work on the IMON stuff as well.

 

[cteno4]

Wouldn’t surprise me if mek for solvent for airbrushing primer like this, it has a high vapor pressure and low viscosity.

 

solvent mix for paints is different brand and kind of paint and why to only use the thinner made for that paint if you can so it’s a good compatible mix for the solvent mix used to make the paint. Acrylics as well as they all use their own blends of additives that different thinners can effect the final result.

 

downside of airbrushes they do take maintenance to keep them nice! This kind of painting really is a lot of experimenting to get the permutation that you need and works well for you.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Yeah, I have various thinners for the various brands of paints I have. Tamiya and Gunze aren't actually true acrylic paints if you go by the definition of acrylic being water based paints. They're more alcohol based, which is why they still have a pretty heavy smell. I believe Vallejo are actually water based, and they definitely smell less, as does their thinner.

 

You're definitely spending quite a bit of time cleaning the airbrush after a painting session, but it is a lot easier getting a good result with an airbrush compared to a regular brush. It's definitely possible to get a good result with a brush, but it requires a lot more practice. For relative simple things like these models, an airbrush just needs a few guidelines, and you're pretty much set. Drying times are also a lot shorter, so you can do multiple coats fairly quick, which easily makes up for the time you spend cleaning the airbrush.

 

Of course, if you're doing advanced freehand stuff with an airbrush, that requires a ton of practice and talent 😄

 

 

I've not been working on the kit the past week, I wanted to give my test bits a good amount of time to cure (worked a little bit on a 1/350 Mikasa kit I've had for many years, with a complete photo etch set, really fiddly stuff.) I gave the test bits a good scratching with various items. While it is still possible to scrape it off, it is a LOT more difficult to do so. This is still only a fairly thin layer of Vallejo Model Air sky grey to act as primer. Pretty confident that, after a good cleaning, I can re-do the frame parts. Just need to figure out how to go about it, since I can only work on 1 side of the parts at a time. Unless I try to shove some bamboo skewers through the little screw holes, and hope that stays a bit stable.

 

 

[cteno4]

I’ve often wondered if the uber air brush artists have some cool techniques to cleaning airbrushes. I found my cheap harbor freight airbrush at $15-20 is faster and easier to clean than my really nice one. For most stuff the harbor freight works fine so I’ve defaulted to using that on mostly structure stuff.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Mine's not really hard to clean really, just run some water through it, then some cleaner, take it apart, clean the needle and nozzle, and pretty much done. My issue is that sometimes between the 1st and 2nd coat of the same colour, the paint would dry on the needle / tip, which made it more difficult to clean. Even with only a couple of minutes waiting between the 2 coats. That's obviously not an issue when doing a bigger number of parts since you won't have downtime between coats.

 

I do have a fairly expensive airbrush (Harder & Steenbeck Infinity), but it's very flexible. The best feature is that you can limit the trigger. I also have 2 needles for it, so I can switch between them, and the smaller needle is excellent for detail work. It also looks good, and I'm a bit of a sucker for things looking good 😄

 

But yeah, even cheap airbrushes work well for the stuff we usually use them for, much more important to get a good quality compressor.