airbrush, gravity feed or bottom feed

[Luv2Fish]

I am going to get a airbrush, i have been looking at some posts on here and looks like the Paasche VL and the Iwata is what some of you like the best. I dont know if i need a gravity feed or a bottom feed. Looks like i do need a dual action brush. what is the big diff in gravity and bottom feed, i understand how they work diffrent but what is best for our hobby. witch is easier to change colors and clean up.

Let me know what yall think.

I have about $100 to spend. I looked at the Airbrush Depot Kits that have the compprosser with the kit for $150.00 but it dosent say what brand of brush comes with it.

Thanks for any help.

[Guest whittler]

I have both the PaascheVL and an Iwata HP-C.  The Paasche is used mostly for priming and shooting pearl paints and the Iwata is used for detail and finish painting. If I could only have 1 it would be the Iwata.

[Luv2Fish]

Thanks Whittler

What about gravity feed and bottom feed?

[dampeoples]

Bottom feed, or side feed, draws paint out of a reservoir, usually a bottle, via a tube by vacuum created when the air flows through the gun. The bottles are generally a larger capacity. The bottles require more air pressure to create the vacuum necessary to get the paint flowing. The thicker the paint, the more pressure required.

Gravity feed brushes generally have a built in reservoir, with or without a cap, that uses, well, gravity to feed the paint into the gun. Since you don't need air pressure to pull paint, you can get by with lower pressure. The reservoirs range in size, and some even come with a cap to permit vertical painting.

As far as cleaning, it really depends on how you choose to load paint. You can get speed caps to affix to all of your paint jars, and simply load a cleaner jar in in between colors, or you can use a jar per color, or even clean one jar out each time. The gravity feed brushes dont generally come with removable reservoirs, so you'll need to clean them between colors. In a simplified form, you can squirt cleaner through a gravity feed untl it runs clean, then pour another color in.

[BIG M]

gravity feed Iwata eclipse, hands down the best brush for the money.  You use alot less paint with the gravity feed, you can spray 1 drop.  The tip is small at .35mm so I would suggest getting top of line airbrush paint.  Pearl colors are a little tough to shoot, but the good out weighs the bad.

[Luv2Fish]

Thanks for all of the replys, yall have helped me alot.