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Hi,
I own a good silair compressor and a hs Evolution 2in1 silverline.i use the 0,2 noozle Most of the Time.
Since i started painting very small camo on flames of war miniatures and dzc etc im looking for a Brush thats cappable of doing very Fine Lines.
I know its alot about technique but i think technique is quite good... Just the Brush limits me...
I thought about an iwata or sotar2020... But has someone some good experiences?
Budget is up to 800€

Not many airbrushes offer a nozzle smaller than 0.2 mm, Sotar 2020 smallest needle is something like a 0.19 mm not enough difference from what you already have.

The only one that I do know about that is even smaller is the H&S Infinity which can come with a 0.15 mm. That is the smallest nozzle size I ever saw offered.

I own an Infinity and a Grex Tritium TG. With the right needle protector on the Infinity I can sign checks with it.

Its not the brush. That brush can pull a hair line.

Work at your technique.
The paint needs to be thin, the pressure needs to be low, the trigger barely gets pulled, and the needle almost touches the job.

Its really not that easy.

Edit; it might be worth putting a new nozzle and needle in, is it well used? the nozzle may be worn... probably not though.
You could even get the smaller 0.15 nozzle / needle set for it.

Gonna try this ty

At 800 euro, you could look also at the Iwata Custom Micron. I've had the pleasure of playing with one, and they are pretty amazing. They include a 0.18 needle. Sadly, I don't think I'm nearly good enough to justify buying one.

One thing to mention is that needle size and ease of drawing hairlines is not the same for each brush, even if the needle sizes are similar.

Hairy Sticks has hit the nail on the head. Even a .5 needle will give an amazingly fine line if your paints thinned right, and your close enough with the right pressure etc.

Also, consider that our acrylic paints are - even when properly thinned - quite thick compared to other paints. When you go below 0.2mm needle/nozzle size, the amount of clogs will increase. A non-tabletop specific airbrush guide I have here recommends a minimum of 0.3mm nozzle for acrylics.

That said, I'll put my trusty H&S Evolution 0.4 aside and do some practice lines with my H&S Infinity 0.15. Just for giggles. ;-]

 Stephanius wrote:
Also, consider that our acrylic paints are - even when properly thinned - quite thick compared to other paints. When you go below 0.2mm needle/nozzle size, the amount of clogs will increase. A non-tabletop specific airbrush guide I have here recommends a minimum of 0.3mm nozzle for acrylics.

That said, I'll put my trusty H&S Evolution 0.4 aside and do some practice lines with my H&S Infinity 0.15. Just for giggles. ;-]

Yeah, the frequency of clogs is definitely very annoying as you drop below 0.3x mm needle sizes.

The number of applications for the tiny needles on tabletop miniatures is limited, in my opinion.... Sure, you can draw edge highlights or eyebrows with an airbrush if you're very skilled... but... why? A brush is much more forgiving, never clogs, and takes 3 seconds to clean between colors

Sorry to ninja the thread, but curious when you say the pressure is low for pulling precision lines, how low would you suggest? 10psi? Less?

Talys wrote:
At 800 euro, you could look also at the Iwata Custom Micron. I've had the pleasure of playing with one, and they are pretty amazing. They include a 0.18 needle. Sadly, I don't think I'm nearly good enough to justify buying one.

One thing to mention is that needle size and ease of drawing hairlines is not the same for each brush, even if the needle sizes are similar.

Since I own and regularly use a Custom Micron I can say that it is super nice to have when you want to get the finest line possible, but I use an Eclipse for about 90% of my airbrushing. The primary difference is the ease at which you can get that fine line. Yes, the CM will get a finer line, but the differences in size are surprising small (of course, that sometimes makes the difference).

What you are spraying is really more important than what you are spraying it from when it comes to precision airbrushing.

Thinned paints will be more difficult to get a fine line with than something like an ink. Using a tiny needle won't help the issue either - as you will need to compensate for the viscosity by using a higher pressure. Higher pressure means further away from your target. Further away means more time for it to fan out.

My Sotar is my goto detail brush - both because it is really smooth in action and balance as well as the tiny cup which lets me see what I am doing. I have all three needles (0.2, 0.45 and 0.7 mm) and although I can get a finer line with inks using the 0.2 - I actually get a finer line with paints using the 0.45 needle.

Selecting what to spray is a bit of a challenge for people who primarily deal with hobby paints. Even "airbrush" paints like Vallejo and Badger Minitair are "chunky". Using an acrylic ink will get pretty good results. Other options are lacquer or enamel paints (to include Tamiya's Acrylics...). Gunze is excellent when you can get them - one of the finest paints I have ever sprayed.

In terms of how low of pressure is low pressure - 10 PSI max for doing faces on 28mm figures, with 5-6 PSI being the norm for acrylic inks and thinned enamels. At least that is where I park it. That lets me do eyes, mouths, eye brows and the like. Inks and regular lacquers will spray at that level - thinning them out a good bit. For something like a Tamiya, which aren't a normal acrylic and are designed for airbrushing - you may need to increase the pressure a bit...12-15 PSI or so. Because each pigment is ground to a different size - it takes a lot more trial and error than what you have to deal with when base coating or doing other larger scale work.

For spraying really thin lines of acrylics, using my H&S Evolution Silverline 0.2mm , pressures as low as 8psi sometimes, you'l need to tweak it a bit to suit you paint mix and your job and brush etc etc, but you want it low enough that you can work really close without blowing the paint around. You will need to not stay in one place too long. do a bit, let it dry and do a bit more - on a fine art work I would move around the job to not stay in one place too long. on a model its quite hard to do this as the opposite side of the figure is still relatively close to the first bit you do. Its going to take lots of patience at our scale. Building up thin lines in multiple passes, but having to wait between each pass... you can use the dry air blow feature of your brush to blow the work dry from a distance. Or perhaps a hair dryer.

Then you need the paint thin enough that it can be sprayed at such low pressure too. its a tight balancing act between the pressure and the thinning and the distance to the job and how quickly and precisely you can work.

I found best results using Liquitex Acrylic Ink, its thin enough that you can use it straight up, but the colour is plenty strong enough that you can dilute it down 1:1 with airbrush medium. I wouldnt add any water atall because it will encourage runs in your work. I can get hairlines with thinned out windsor and newton galeria paints. but I cant have strong colouration in a paint thinned that much. The inks are really the go to for this work because of their incredibly high pigment density yet really low viscosity.
Had lots of joy lately trying out vallejo airbrush thinner, the smell reminds me of waterborne automotive paints.

These are the inks I find work best for detail work with my airbrush.
http://www.artsupplies.co.uk/colours-liquitex-professional-acrylic-inks.htm

wow thanks for those answers, you all realy helped me.
im gonna keep my brush and try to improve my control, worked good so far, gonna ost some pics soon.