Acquisitions - Badger Patriot 105 Airbrush

I'm fortunate to have a very understanding wife in regards to my hobby (and woodworking) tools. When I said I needed another airbrush she didn't question it just went ahead and let me do it. I made the purchase quite quickly in case there was a change in heart though(to be fair I never say anything about her shoe purchases and I scored a new compressor as well).

It took forever to arrive. Apparently it took the USPS in Illinois about five days to figure out the Denver was in Colorado. Thank goodness for tracking numbers.

My current airbrush is a Badger Renegade Velocity, which replaced two older airbrushes (mostly because I have a tendency to lose parts...another story). I love the Renegade but it is a detail airbrush and it takes forever to do primer and basecoats with it. The Patriot comes with three needles, super detail, detail, and general. That gives me a little flexibility, the hassle is that you can't just change the needle you have to change some of the components up front as well. I probably should have gotten the Reaper Miniature Vex airbrush which comes with two needles and you can literally just swap them out. I pulled the trigger on the Patriot because there I knew what size needles it came with the Vex is just listed as fat and skinny, my guess is a detail needle and a general needle, but when I couldn't find the information I opted for the Patriot. Its quite possible the Vex will still end up in the line up though, time will tell.

I unboxed it and everything is there so now its just a matter of finding something to try it out on. Probable the Jagdpanthers which are going to need a coat of satin varnish before I apply decals. And what better way to break in an airbrush with the stickiest paint I can ran through it.

The Patriot comes in a nice plastic box and the setup I purchased came with two additional needles. The small plastic "vial" you see contains the "nose" of the airbrush that has to be used with that needle. I'm sure I'll be losing something before to long.

It has a very similar design to my Renegade, but seems to be a bit lighter. I believe it comes stock with the detail needle (0.5). The general purpose needle is a 0.7 and the super detail needle is a 0.3. I'll leave it stock for now and see how it does with primer and basecoats.