Helm wrote:
I got the Graff Spee and PE quite cheap too, well under $100 for the lot, so I dont mind that being my first PE effort.
I was looking at the PE cutting system and think I'll just make my own.
The compressor is being offered as a set with the airbrushes, (Master Airbrush Multi-purpose Professional Airbrushing System)
I was wondering if anyone here has used the brand and had any feedback.
Which PE set do you have? Some are much, much easier to work with than others. Another peculiarity about the instructions is that some of them make the assumption that you know a great deal about the prototype (the real one). For many of us, that is not really the case, although of course some us may have actually served for years aboard a given ship. Having never been to sea, my knowledge is strictly limited to reading, and I just don't know enough to follow some of the directions properly.
PE cutting system: I bought one, but when it arrived I decided that I could make my own rather trivially. As in, a trip to the store for some Lucite and - literally - about 10 minutes of cutting and gluing some flat and round plastic stock. For about $3.
Airbrush: I've been around airbrushes and modeling since the mid-1970s, and I've never heard of this brand. This is not to say that it's terrible or anything, but I it is not particularly common. (Again, not a value judgement: it may be brand new to the market.) However, a pretty basic well-known brush such as the Badger 350 runs $56 at good discounts, I have to wonder just what you're getting when the package has three air brushes AND a compressor.
I am hardly an expert at airbrushes, but I'll offer the following. First, particularly for smaller scales, I'd recommend a gravity feed brush, since that allows you to mix and use a very small amount of paint - no waste. Do the siphon feed ones work too? Oh sure, and if you're usually going to mix and apply a half ounce of paint at a time (Pullman Green on six 1:48 85's rail passenger cars!), no worries. But you sure won't be putting a half ounce of any individual paint onto a 1/700 ship, not even primer or hull red.
Particularly with an airbrush, my advice is to get a known quantity, since you are coming to this with no previous background. More than once I've thought that I was just #### at X, only to discover later that I had inappropriate tools. One of those times was with soldering, and the #2 experience was an airbrush. I thought it was pretty hard - until my wife said, more or less, "hey silly, you're working too hard. go get MY airbrush and it'll go a lot easier." She was right. (She also subsequently told me "hey that's mine, get your own.") Hers was an Iwata Eclipse (she is an artist, which explains much of the previous statement) and yes, it was a lot easier than my low-end airbrush. I did buy myself an Iwata after a while, which is one reason that I mentioned an Iwata NEO, which is their entry-level family. There are plenty of other good airbrushes, from Paasche, Badger, etc. I'm limiting my comments to my direct experience (although I do have a Paasche siphon-feed too).