Do You Own A Vintage Airbrush?

[breadneck]

...and if you do, tell me a little bit about it 😉 

[Geoff M]

My first airbrush 50+ years ago was a Badger single action with the can of compressed gas that never worked.  Then I got a Paasche Single action and a compressor.  Never got the hang of it.  Then a Paasche VL-3 which I still have but it is a back-up if something goes wrong with my current line-up.  Now I have a mix of Grex (3) and a Iwata airbrushes.

[A-10 LOADER]

I guess if you consider the Paasche VL's as "vintage" then yes I have two of them ( purchased in the 90's ) and, they are my workhorses.

Steve

Edited November 26, 2025 by A-10 LOADER

[karl h]

i still use my badger 150 from the early eighties, still going strong 

[Cloud in the Wind]

I too have a Paasche VL - its about 30years old.  I blow Vallejo Air nearly exclusively on a #3 needle off an old 3gal Harbor Freight compressor.  

[Robert Garelli]

I started out with the Badger 150 set in the late 80's, also bought a Aztec airbrush, which I never really liked. in the 90's I purchased a couple Paasche VL airbrushes and kept them all the way up to the 20-teens and shifted over to Iwata brand of airbrushes which have been my favorite of all of them. I still have 3 Paasche VL in the closet. 

[wxltcol]

I have a Testors Model  Master airbrush that throws paint like nobody's business.  Haven't airbrushed in ages, though, so need to get back into it.

 

tom

[Rando]

On 11/26/2025 at 5:05 PM, Robert Garelli said:

I started out with the Badger 150 set in the late 80's, also bought a Aztec airbrush, which I never really liked. in the 90's I purchased a couple Paasche VL airbrushes and kept them all the way up to the 20-teens and shifted over to Iwata brand of airbrushes which have been my favorite of all of them. I still have 3 Paasche VL in the closet. 

I remember I had a cool pamphlet for those Aztek airbrushes as a kid and thought about getting one. Nowadays it's weird to think about them, they're made of plastic. Never tried them but haven't heard many great things. 

[Robert Garelli]

The concept was good, you could change the plastic nozzle on them, but as you said, everything was plastic and didn't feel right in my hand and nozzle issues were constant as back then I used enamels which were a pain compared to today's acrylics and lacquers, which is I prefer to shoot now. 

[Joe Hegedus]

Define "vintage".  I still use the Paasche "H" that I bought in 1987 as my main go-to airbrush but is that really vintage since it is still available, albeit with slight design changes (the screw knob to limit the air button depression has been deleted in the newer ones), and have a Binks Wren that my dad bought c. 1980ish that still works fine.  I don't use that one because replacement tips/cones seem to be quite expensive (way more than I think is reasonable at the places I've found them online) and I don't want to risk damaging the one that is in the brush.  Plus, I don't need to use it for anything, but it is what I first tried to learn to spray with.

[Chuck1945]

My first was also a Paasche H, purchased new in 1967 with one of my first payments as a brand new USAF ‘butter bar’. It is still around here somewhere.

[strikeeagle801]

6 hours ago, Robert Garelli said:

The concept was good, you could change the plastic nozzle on them, but as you said, everything was plastic and didn't feel right in my hand and nozzle issues were constant as back then I used enamels which were a pain compared to today's acrylics and lacquers, which is I prefer to shoot now. 

I owned a few different Aztec brushes over the years. Even when they went to metal bodies, the nozzles were still plastic. They had multiple sizes that all screwed into the same body, which was pretty nice, but even the metal bodies weren't very high quality. I eventually moved on because I got tired of having to send them in for work/replacement every few months. They had a lifetime warranty on them, but still. 

 

Aaron