TOOL TIME - Comparison Badger and Harder & Steenbeck airbrushes

[Heavens Eagle]

First off there is this:

I think most of us are setting in the lower right corner.
But! Then there is this:

Alas I have not had a War Department for many, many years thus I can do posts on Airbrushes. So here is a short review on the differences between Badger (mostly SOTAR) and my Harder & Steenbeck airbrushes.

Hope you enjoyed this little post. My Badger brushes have pretty much become retired at this point. The H&S brushes just work and are easier to clean up.

 

[Sharkmouth]

Awesome to know...

 

[moon puppy]

Very nice Paul. After my last purchase experience from Badger I've been thinking about trying something else. How do the spray patterns compare? I know the Sotar should be able to give a pencil thin line, I've never been able to achieve that but I figure it's the medium more than the brush. What would be the comparable model to the Sotar and how does it spray?

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Very nice Paul. After my last purchase experience from Badger I've been thinking about trying something else. How do the spray patterns compare? I know the Sotar should be able to give a pencil thin line, I've never been able to achieve that but I figure it's the medium more than the brush. What would be the comparable model to the Sotar and how does it spray?

I have the EVOLUTION CR Plus with a 0.15mm nozzle that I use A LOT. I also have the Plain EVOLUTION which came with two size sets of tips (0.2mm and 0.4mm). Each tip set has a needle, nozzle, and air head with a needle cap. I read someplace that H&S did a modification to their needles that truncates them so the pointed tip doesn't stick out so far. As I was having a little build up problem with my .15 I modified the tip of the needle down a little so it is shorter and it did make a difference. I have been playing with doing finer lines and the H&S does seem to do a better and easier job of them than the Sotar did. I do think the super fine lines though require really thin paint with just the right air pressure and that means you should have an air valve at the airbrush to adjust air flow right there.
Thus it starts becoming a paint by feel and intuition than by absolute settings.
I did have a lot of trouble with the Sotars when spraying any kind of acrylic. They would just clog up. With the H&S when it gets a little clog, I can open it and spritz out a "wet" spot which clears it and it works great for a while. Again, if I am spraying the Vallejo Air with the flow improver I don't seem to have any trouble with clogs.

Note that the color on my Pak 40 was old Testor's Model Master Rot Braun primer. All the German camouflage was Vallejo air with the airbrush flow improver added. It sprayed wonderfully with not a bit of trouble through the Evolution and 0.2mm tip set. Vallejo makes a primer paint in the RAL 8012 RotBraun color and I will be using that on my armor builds from now on.

 

[paddy]

I have to say i have a badger Krome Renegade which i really like but the caveat would be i only use MRP and Alclad for 99% of my work and both are very thin and pre thinned and dont have a tendency to dry on the tip. I doubt it would be much use for something like Tamiya thinned with rubbing alcohol with its super high evaporation rate. I am happy to put down 6 coats to get a cover and use a very small pigment paint like MRP, some would like to do one coat ion tamiya and a renegade isn't going to do that nearly as well..

 

[Heavens Eagle]

I have to say i have a badger Krome Renegade which i really like but the caveat would be i only use MRP and Alclad for 99% of my work and both are very thin and pre thinned and dont have a tendency to dry on the tip. I doubt it would be much use for something like Tamiya thinned with rubbing alcohol with its super high evaporation rate. I am happy to put down 6 coats to get a cover and use a very small pigment paint like MRP, some would like to do one coat ion tamiya and a renegade isn't going to do that nearly as well..

I have a Krome and the functional part is the same as the Sotar. I do believe that the passage for the paint being larger in the H&S does make a big difference when spraying thicker paints.
The Vallejo Air paints are thinner than the basic color paints, but I had trouble spraying those through my Badger brushes. Have sprayed small amounts of Vallejo Air paints through my H&S brushes without any trouble. They also spray the Alclad primers very well as well as the old Testors Model Master colors, and Tamiya colors.