Eclipse questions

N

Neural

Guest
Before I commit and buy an Eclipse, I have a couple questions.

1) Is there a needle or needle kit that I need to purchase extra in order to get the widest possible spray area, or does that come with the airbrush?

2) What are the pros/cons of the CS vs. the BCS?
 
CS = 0.35
BCS = 0.5

They only come fitted with 1 set. If you want to go bigger or smaller, you need the needle, nozzle and nozzle cap.

CS uses less air. Easier colour changes
BCS uses little bit more in order to suck the paint up from the bottom. Only comes with 1 empty bottle. Pain to clean out if you do colour changes. Either get more bottles ot get cups from Badger, Paasche or Harder & Steenbeck.
 
For bcs color change I have one bottle for water cleaning and back flash, and one bottle with windows cleaner for cleaning and backflash and it cleans fast. At 60 psi :D
 
I work primarily with aluminum (like my profile picture for example). My work area is usually in the range of 12" x 12", but varies from square to rectangular (the last piece I did was 10" x 32").
Contrary to how it appears, there is next to no detail in the images. My profile picture, for example, is has two colors: The black outer area I painted after masking the flower off, and the yellow/gold area in the center. That particular piece is 12" x 12" in size.
For what I make, I have yet to see a need for a line smaller than 1/8", but my HVLP detail gun sprays far too wide unless I want to color an entire piece.
My Paasche Talon has only ever seen use with the #3 needle because I can get up to around 3" with it (6" if I pull back and just go slow).
 
I work primarily with aluminum (like my profile picture for example). My work area is usually in the range of 12" x 12", but varies from square to rectangular (the last piece I did was 10" x 32").
Contrary to how it appears, there is next to no detail in the images. My profile picture, for example, is has two colors: The black outer area I painted after masking the flower off, and the yellow/gold area in the center. That particular piece is 12" x 12" in size.
For what I make, I have yet to see a need for a line smaller than 1/8", but my HVLP detail gun sprays far too wide unless I want to color an entire piece.
My Paasche Talon has only ever seen use with the #3 needle because I can get up to around 3" with it (6" if I pull back and just go slow).
that was good info. Now girls and guys can help you better.
 
out of curiosity, what about the HP-TH?
The TH is a trigger action airbrush that I believe comes standard with a .5 setup. It has two different end caps, one produces the standard airbrush cone pattern the other is a fan pattern like a spray gun. I have one and it’s great for covering a larger area. Technically I have the GSI290 which is essentially the same thing sold under a different brand.


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I have the .35 eclipse with the .5 needle/nozzle/head to swap to if needed. I found it great for covering a slightly larger area. You do need to up pressure a little, so your compressor would need to be able to handle that. The .5 is also good for effects paints such as candies, pearls etc, that struggle through smaller nozzles.
 
I have both the CS and the TH.

The TH has a spray cone of about 4" max, and maybe 3mm min. Coverage within that cone or fan is very consistent, with falloff being mostly in the outer 1/2". It's great for broad coverage and mid-scale "drawing" (for lack of a better term), but a non-starter for detail. I'd consider it a transitional tool: for if you need something that can go bigger than a standard airbrush, but don't quite need an HVLP gun. I'm a model builder, and I got it for spraying primer and base color coats. It's biggest caveat IMO is that it produces A LOT of fogging, so you 100% NEED to have aggressive active ventilation. This makes it unsuitable for a lot of indoor benchtop hobby work that regular airbrushes do OK in.

The CS has a spray cone of around 3" max, but it's soft, with a high degree of falloff from the center. Technically you can do broad coverage with it, but it requires a lot of repeated passes, and more attention has to be paid to ensure evenness. It's much better for freehand drawing and detail than the TH, but if you mostly work with masking instead of freehand, and/or don't need fine line capability, the TH will do just as well if not better.

I have both the .35 and the .5 kits for the CS, but I only ever really use the .35. The only advantage the .5 has is it can pass paints with coarser-ground pigments. Both do equally well with thicker (less reduced) paints. Both have comparable spray cones and can do equally fine lines with comparable atomization, however the .35 has the advantage with linework in that it gives you more trigger travel between "barely open" and "full blast", so it makes for easier freehand control.

Between the two, the TH has better atomization, which I tentatively would guess is because it uses a more Hi-Line/Micron style nozzle and head system. The TH can also use thicker (less reduced) paints as well as coarse pigment paints much easier than the .5 Eclipse kit. I attribute this to the TH's needle, which has a very blunt double-taper that allows the nozzle to be opened up a lot more than with a conventional .5 airbrush.

The above kinda looks like the TH is the better brush, but for my uses (model building) I actually hugely prefer the CS. It's ultimately much more versatile, and while both are easy to clean, the CS has a much simpler part breakdown. The CS is a very simple, capable, and reliable "just works" jack-of-all-trades, whereas the TH's extreme ventilation needs kinda force it into a specialist role for me. If I were painting car panels in a professionally outfitted shop, things might work out the other way.

You mentioned having a Paasche Talon. I've briefly owned a Talon in the past, and I wold say that CS is sort of like a simpler, MUCH better made equivalent. The Talon is like a Harbor Freight cheapie compared to the Eclipse.

If someone who'd never owned an airbrush before asked me weather to buy a Talon or an Eclipse, I'd answer "Eclipse" , hands down hard enough to crack the tabletop. But for you, buying an Eclipse would basically only be replacing your Talon in the roles it already plays: it won't get you capabilities the Talon doesn't, it'll just be nicer to use. For the work you do and the stuff you're describing you want out of this buy, I'd recommend the TH.
 
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