DaveG
Airbush Analyst
In the box of goodies I received from Badger (they are moving and needed to clean out the old building), I found an unmarked, and unbranded brush. It looks to me to be a very early example of what became the Patriot Arrow. Some of the details make me think it is probably from the 1990's. The body and color cup are the same part as the mid to late 1980's GXF, "B" cup gravity feed brushes. The addition of the "T" slot at the back of the trigger opening makes me think 1990's... all of this is completely a guess on my part, though 
, as there is zero documentation and I have no other examples of any Patriot style build from near that time period.
Build is nearly identical to the 1980's early 90's GXF. There is no branding, numbers, or engraving of any sort on the body-
Super nice detail is the rounding of the inside bottom of the color cup. Here pictured with a like era GXF, which has a flat bottom color cup. The only other Badgers I have with this detail are my original era Sotar brushes (purchased second half of the 1990's). They too have a rounded color cup interior bottom.
Pictured here with a recent version of the Patriot Arrow build -
The angle of the color cup is a pretty good indicator of age, as these changes occur across the entire line of brushes at the same time.
As found in the box of goodies, the brush had a general purpose nozzle, needle, and air cap installed. It honestly did not work very well. It kinda seems there was not enough nozzle protrusion from the air cap to establish a good vacuum to establish paint flow. It would not pull paint at small needle openings, and then really blast it out without much finesse or control. Luckily the ultra detail parts from the modern Patriot fit right up, and it actually works quite nicely.
Of note on the build is that the head boss is screwed into, then soldered onto an old style body. The seam is visible just below the base if you really look-
You can see the difference in construction when compared tot he production version (the top one in the photo)-
I have no idea why the photos may be of different sizes - on the computer they are all the same dimensions...
, as there is zero documentation and I have no other examples of any Patriot style build from near that time period.Build is nearly identical to the 1980's early 90's GXF. There is no branding, numbers, or engraving of any sort on the body-
Super nice detail is the rounding of the inside bottom of the color cup. Here pictured with a like era GXF, which has a flat bottom color cup. The only other Badgers I have with this detail are my original era Sotar brushes (purchased second half of the 1990's). They too have a rounded color cup interior bottom.
Pictured here with a recent version of the Patriot Arrow build -
The angle of the color cup is a pretty good indicator of age, as these changes occur across the entire line of brushes at the same time.
As found in the box of goodies, the brush had a general purpose nozzle, needle, and air cap installed. It honestly did not work very well. It kinda seems there was not enough nozzle protrusion from the air cap to establish a good vacuum to establish paint flow. It would not pull paint at small needle openings, and then really blast it out without much finesse or control. Luckily the ultra detail parts from the modern Patriot fit right up, and it actually works quite nicely.
Of note on the build is that the head boss is screwed into, then soldered onto an old style body. The seam is visible just below the base if you really look-
You can see the difference in construction when compared tot he production version (the top one in the photo)-
I have no idea why the photos may be of different sizes - on the computer they are all the same dimensions...
