Side feed airbrushes

**wokka wokka** · 08-25-2009

I'm after some opinions on side feed airbrushes, has anybody got/used one?

I currently use a siphon (bottom) feed (Badger 150), and I like being able to change colours quickly by swapping jars, but they do seem to need higher air pressures to work effectively. I also recall reading that gravity feed can be better for fine work, as the paint delivery is more constant.

Does a side feed give you the best of both worlds, or actually worse than a dedicated siphon/gravity feed?

On my siphon feed, the paint travels up, then round a 30 degree (approx) angle into the airbrush, but a side feed the paint has to go round a 90 degree bend. Also, gravity fee brushes deliver paint straight into the brush, whereas on a side feed it has a 90 degree bend and comes in horizontally.

Basically, I guess I'm asking does a side feed perform as well as a dedicated siphon/gravity, or do you get the equivelant of a poor gravity and a poor siphon in one?

I'm looking to purchase another airbrush, and was looking at a Badger Renegade series brush, but I'm nort sure the budget will stretch to a siphon and a gravity feed. The other option is to buy a Sotar 20/20 and put all the 20/20 parts on my Badger 150 body to get siphon feed, I know a couple of people who have this, and it works well for them. But by the time I get a Sotar with fine needle (almost US$200), it'd probably be about the same as buying one of each siphon/gravity renegade anyway.

**Kaiilla** · 08-27-2009

I've not used a side feed.

I am considering getting one for the color change and "cup out of the line of sight" aspect.

I started with a badger 200 Siphon feed, then went to the Iwata Revolution. Siphon feed.

I've gotten 2 Iwata gravity feeds, a Badger 100 and a cheapie eBay gravity feed.

I VERY RARELY use the siphon feeds unless I need to go with thicker paint for something.

For the most part I just put less paint in the brush so that it's not a big deal when I want to change colors.

**fontgeek** · 09-03-2009

I use side feed brushes all the time (HP SB, HP 101, HP 102C, XS, XT, and now the new Tritium from Grex.
Side feed brushes let you spray at ANY Angle, from straight up to straight down and anything in between. They use gravity as the primary feed pressure to get the paint into the path of the airflow. Many, like the Olympos HP 101, 102C and B, and the Grex XT, XS, and Tritium, allow you to have a huge variety of cup/reservoir sizes, and have the siphon feed fittings that let you work in that mode, should you wish to. Currently, there aren't any quick change options like the fast blast type of setup like you would use on a siphon feed brush, but the advantages of having a cup that rotates 360 degrees, and can hold tiny or HUGE amounts of paint may be more than enough to outweigh the color change issues. The fact that they, like other gravity feed brushes, require less air pressure to spray the paint may tip the scales for you in their direction.

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