How good is a Paasche HS#3 external mix airbrush for scale modeling applications ?

Well kind of putting the cart in front of the horse since you already have it in your hot little hands. Sincerely though you have a damn fine airbrush and it will serve you the rest of your life if maintained and cared for. I have several airbrushes and my favorite is the H3 I bought and learned on in high school. That was 25 years ago! The only things I ever did was replace a bent needle and cone once, and that was because the brush slipped off my work desk onto the basement floor.

The H3 will do damn near anything you require of it and will be easy to clean and if necessary tear down and re-assemble. IMO you could go buy the most expensive Iwata or whatever brush in the world and it will be useless unless you have some talent and experience. I have used my H3 to do broad coverage as well as tight freehand camo schemes. Also I can get a pretty fine line with it with the proper air pressure, paint consitency, distance from work surface and patience. Go ahead and practice and learn how to use it and you will be very happy with its performance.

Cheers, Max Bryant

Max,

I second everything you have said! Great unit.

Art

It's a nice airbrush, and the first time you use it, you'll probably botch the job.

This is what spray hulks are for. Slap together a kit you don't care much about--just the major components are fine. Then do everything in the way of paintwork you'd do on the real apple of your eye--sanding, seam closure, primer if necessary and practice the camo patterns or whatever. Mask or don't depending on what you're trying to do. You don't need to get rigorous about closing the seams on the hulk, but the idea is to keep at painting it until you get a result you feel good about, and then you stand a better chance of doing a job you'll like on the real McCoy. OTOH, you can just dive right in--if you screw up an expensive rare kit that you'll never see again as long as you live, it's not exactly the same thing as dying of cancer, especially if you treat it as a learning experience. My own experience is that a paint job I felt good about five years ago is probably a paint job I wouldn't admit to today--we do get better as we do more airbrushing, and for some of us the expectations rise even faster than the achievement.

Mark Schynert

Vinod:

You have had plenty of comments on the Paasche H3 from others. I will point out that you need an air source which will allow you to vary the air pressure between 10 and 30 PSI. A moisture trap in the line is also a very good thing to remove condensation from the air. As for something to practice on, I use empty plastic beverage bottles, soda pop, fruit juice, whatever. Practice is part of the air brush equation, like any other tool, you have to learn to use it. The Paasche H3 is a very good starter brush, I bought my first one about 30 years ago. If it has been around that long, you know it has to be good.

Bill Shuey

When I was in the engineering model field and had as many as 20 fellow model makers (some thought to be) we used only the Paasche "H" as it was the most durable and could withstand the treatment of all the different people could give them. I have used it for over 40 years and still have the first one along with Iwata, Badger and a few others but only seem to use the "H" when painting models and a VL for art and retouching photo's. For practice using one get a coloring book and some food coloring, works great and you can also practice on cakes and then eat the mistakes, sort of making mistakes and eating them too.