Paasche VL Review

12/2011

Here is another classic airbrush that I have been wanting to look at. Coast Airbrush sells the castor alone for $46.l, but the set with three sizes of needles and tips and other goodies is just $8.50 more than. So, that's what I decided to become. Dave Monnig, the owner of Coast, gave me a break on the price, and I really appreciate it. Dave is a cracking guy, and his knowledge and enthusiasm for airbrushes is obvious when you talk to him. Be sure to check out his gratis videos on the Coast web site. They are well worth watching.

Here is what I got.

Under the hose, are the #1 and #five tips and heads.

First impressions

I detest to say this, but they were non good. The finish is nice enough, just when I tried to pull back on the trigger, it was stuck. And so, I removed the handle and loosened the needle chuck. Now, the trigger moved freely, but the needle was still stuck. And so, I figured I would pull the head off. But, information technology was impossible to practice with the little wrench provided. It was frozen.

I propped the brush upside down, put a niggling lacquer thinner in the pigment input port and allow it sit down for nearly 15 minutes. When I came back, I was able to intermission the needle gratuitous with my hand and pull it out the rear. The head was still stuck. To get it loose, I clamped the body in my woodworking vice and used a half-dozen inch Crescent wrench, hoping the nothing would break. It felt rough coming off, like there was something in the threads. After some cleaning and lube with Chapstick, it now turns pretty well with some small crude spots. There were grooves in the tip from existence pressed too hard against the body, as you can see above.

I put it dorsum together and found that the needle didn't desire to seat all the way forrad in the tip. It went through the needle seal OK, simply jammed only before being fully seated. I have never seen this before. What I found was that the needle was so off center that it was rubbing on the inside of the tip. To show what I mean, I inked the front of the body and tip of the needle and pressed them against a slice of paper. You can come across the results above. The needle comes out about two thirds down from the top of the opening. At present, it is not unusual for a needle to be a little off eye. It doesn't seem to bear on the spray pattern much, and it is a difficult tolerance to hold. Just, I have never seen one this far off earlier.The iii openings at the peak are air passages. Iii seem a chip of an overkill to me. Simply, what do I know?I tried the #v needle, tip and caput and got the same results. So, the trouble must be in the trunk.

And so, what to practise? I could probably return information technology to Coast. Only, instead, I will try contacting Paasche.

I e-mailed Paasche and got a response the next mean solar day from Chuck maxim to send the brush in and they would supersede it. And so, that's what I did.

Exactly fourteen days afterwards a package arrived from Paasche. I thought, great now I can try information technology out. When I opened the box and examined the brush I establish IT WAS THE EXACT Aforementioned AIRBRUSH. I recognized it from the marking I fabricated on the air valve body when I tried to remove it. And, it had the exact same problems. They didn't even supercede the scarred tip. Exercise you think I was unhappy? I fired off an e-mail to Chuck explaining my displeasure. The side by side mean solar day I got a response from Chuck. He said he didn't know how that happened, but he would send me a new airbrush free. I wrote dorsum and thanked him. I guess screw-ups can happen anywhere. Truthful to his discussion, a new airbrush arrived a few days subsequently, and it looks good. So, although it cost me a few dollars to ship the bad airbrush, I ended up with a practiced one and a bunch of spare parts. By the way, I never told Chuck that I was doing a review.

Here it is

The VL looks very similar to the Badger 175 Crescendo. Here they are adjacent to i some other.

Both have fat bodies, with diameters within a few thousandths of each other. The needle protecting cap on the VL tin be removed, exposing the needle for close work. The pop-off handle of the 175 might brand cleaning of information technology a tiny bit quicker. The Paasche cup looks much like a Badger straight cup, and cups and bottles are interchangeable. The VL is lighter at 88g vs. 96g for the 175.

Parts Breakup

Here it is disassembled. The air valve casing is on tight, so I didn't remove it. Information technology probably never needs to be removed anyway. The internal parts of the air valve are piece of cake to remove with a small-scale screwdriver, and you can adjust tension past a modest amount.

The needle seal is Teflon, and like others I've seen of this type very sensitive to accommodate. The handle has finer threads than the Badger 175, and takes a few more turns to remove. The tips measure about 0.5mm, 0.76mm, and ane.0mm, just like the 175. The head is similar to the 175, with no gaskets. Only, it does require a wrench to tighten. The trigger associates is like the Thayer & Chandlers, with the rocker permanently fastened to the needle tube.

The needle limiter is clever. As y'all can see on the left, in that location is a piddling thumb wheel that moves a lever that holds the trigger dorsum. It seems to be a pretty fine adjustment, and could exist useful. On the right, you can come across information technology disassembled. These are tiny parts that would be like shooting fish in a barrel to lose and tricky to put dorsum together You really should never take to have information technology autonomously.

The needles aren't similar anything I've seen before either. The main shaft diameter of all three is a large 0.080 inches. Merely, the medium and big needles step down to 0.050 inches nigh the tip. For some reason, the fine needle doesn't have a footstep. Hither they are with fine #1 at the top, and then medium #3 in the middle, and heavy #5 at the bottom. The needles and heads accept grooves to identify them. The tips are unmarked, just you can tell which is which by looking at them.

The medium VL needle has a dual slope taper very much similar the Badger 175 needle. The main taper of the 175 is slightly more acute. The VL needle is the pinnacle one and beneath it is the 175 medium.

Because of the slightly unlike taper, the 175 medium needle extends further past the end of the tip. The height needle and tip is the VL, and the lower one the 175 medium. This results in very unlike trigger characteristics. In the VL, the gradual slope lasts for about one quarter of the trigger stroke. In the 175 this is but reversed, and the gradual slope lasts for almost 3 quarters of the stroke. The consequence of this is that the 175 has better trigger command for fine lines.Detect, the VL tip is already developing a mark where it meets the trunk. And, I have not over tightened it. This might be due to the difference betwixt using a wrench and hand tightening. Or, information technology might be that the VL has a sharper edge on the body.

The taper of the VL'southward #one needle comes to a sharp bespeak, while the 175 fine needle has a tiny secondary taper on the tip. They both extend about the same distance. There is very petty difference in trigger sensitivity, although I would give the 175 a slight edge. Above, y'all tin can see the VL #1 at the meridian and below, the 175 fine.

Unlike other airbrushes I've seen, the front and dorsum surfaces of the VL trigger are different. The front is rounded and the back side that rubs on the rocker is flat. Usually, they are both rounded. Before VL's had a two part trigger, like the Master G-22 and some Iwatas. This has been changed to the simpler i slice design with an indent on the bottom, like to the Badgers. To catechumen an old castor, you demand to change both the trigger and the air valve piston. Some other change to the trigger is that at present the top is concave whereas the older version was domed shape with ridges.

One more change from older versions is the head cap. The head used to be universal for all tip sizes, and the head cap was actually a spray regulator. As yous can see on the right, the head is now marked with iii stripes and acts as a spray regulator, and the head cap is merely a protective sleeve. This ways that y'all tin can spray without information technology and have full needle exposure. 1 complaint I have seen of the older version is that this is non possible. I doubtable this is an upgrade that could be washed to older brushes. The hose has rubber O-rings at both ends which should result in a good seal. It also smelled like the within of a tire store, so it must be rubber. The Annoy braided hose has no olfactory property, and I expect it is some sort of plastic. The threads at the airbrush end are unique to Paasche. So, an adapter is needed if yous want to use a different hose, or if you desire to use the Paasche hose with a dissimilar airbrush.

Trying it out

I tried spraying h2o with the #3 set-up and was having some trouble. The spray would stop and start as I pulled back on the trigger, and terminate completely with the trigger all the way back. I tried tightening the needle seal a bit, but it didn't assistance. I have a piece of bees wax shaped something like a big olive pit, and I twisted it lightly in the torso opening where the tip sits. That fixed it. There must have been a tiny leak hither. Then, as I do on all my airbrushes, I cutting a couple loops off the air valve and trigger springs to lighten the action.The doodle on the right was washed with food coloring on a paper towel. I used the thumb bicycle trigger limiter. Information technology works really well. Without it, my lines would not take been as fine or consistent. I left the caput cap off for all 3 doodles so I could get closer. The VL #3 uses a bit more than air than the 175 medium. The opening around the tip is larger.Hither are doodles done with the #i and #5 components.

The #five is the first i.0mm tip I have e'er used. It is very sensitive. When yous pull back a little, it will spray a LOT.

I sprayed ModelMaster enamel on some plastic with the #three medium needle, and information technology went on nice and smooth with adept control. The spray pattern was narrow plenty that I recall you would seldom demand to switch to the #1 needle. And still, it would cover a pretty big area also. It was very much like the 175. The pollex bicycle limiter is a overnice feature. Clean upwards was quick and easy.

Conclusion

Paasche is a fine one-time company with many fans, and it doesn't experience good to betoken out defects. If it had just been a stuck needle, I wouldn't take mentioned it. And, if the caput was tight with no damage to the tip, I probably would accept only said the head was tight and needed a wrench, and let it go. Just, the castor was un-useable, and it would have been dishonest of me to ignore information technology. The box was mill sealed from a reputable dealer. I saw Dave accept information technology from a stack of about ten other boxes. It may have been the only bad 1 in the stack. Indeed, it may be the only bad ane Paasche always shipped for all I know. Simply, that's what I got. Sure, at that place was a botch on the return, but Paasche's response was excellent.

The VL is a practiced airbrush. It is comparable to the 175 which is also a good airbrush. The 175 medium configuration has better fine line control, but the pollex wheel somewhat compensates for this. I'm not a big fan of fatty bodied airbrushes. But, if you prefer a larger airbrush, the VL tin certainly exercise a prissy task.

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