Gravity Feed Airbrush
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Gravity pulls the paint down to the airbrush's tip. The built up pressure makes the paint 'want' to get out and be sprayed.
The Good
It requires very little paint to operate
Gravity
continually
forces the paint toward the airbrush's tip to be sprayed. A
gravity feed airbrush can spray with only a single drop of
paint in the cup.
Compared to a siphon-feed
airbrush...It allows spraying with less air pressure
Air pressure
doesn't
pull paint up and out of a bottle. That extra air
pressure atomizes the paint the better and more throughly.
It's more forgiving of thicker, chunkier paint
The pressure
normally used to pull the paint out of a siphon feed bottle instead
atomizes
thicker, chunkier paint better.
Of course, 'thicker' and 'chunkier' are relative terms--don't get carried away. Think of gravity feed airbrushes as 'more forgiving' of your paint mixing mistakes.
Of course, 'thicker' and 'chunkier' are relative terms--don't get carried away. Think of gravity feed airbrushes as 'more forgiving' of your paint mixing mistakes.
The Bad
The color cup doesn't hold very much paint
Most
spray guns have screw-in gravity feed cups of assorted sizes.
Most
airbrushes don't have this optional feature. Instead they
have small paint cups already attached to the airbrush body.
The biggest paint cups hold roughly .5 oz of liquid.
The biggest paint cups hold roughly .5 oz of liquid.
Longer cleaning times than a siphon feed airbrush
If you
clean
the paint out while it's still wet, you shouldn't have too many
problems. Dried on, caked on paint is the worst.
It still takes longer than changing out a bottle though.
It still takes longer than changing out a bottle though.
The Guru's Opinion
When in doubt choose a gravity feed airbrush.Or rather, if you don't have excellent reasons to choose a siphon feed or side feed airbrush then choose a gravity feed airbrush.
The good tends to far, far outweigh the bad here, especially if you're a beginner.
- You
can practice with small amounts of paint.
- The airbrush doesn't need as much air pressure to run. This becomes more of a necessity if you choose to use small airbrush compressors.
- More forgiving of
paint mixing errors. Everyone makes paint mixing errors.
Pros mess up their paint mixes just as often as beginners. Beginners get far more frustrated by it though.
less
pressure = less over spray =
finer details
