Neo and Evolution review

[Madbrush]

Today I tested out my new and expensive Harder & Steenbeck Evolution silverline 2 in 1, this is an unbelievably beautiful piece of kit and it looks so cool sitting in it's box, BUT, unfortunately that is where the excitement stops.

I decided to test the Evo together with the Neo for Iwata, doing the same tasks with both.

Firstly to compare the 2;

The Neo for Iwata

This airbrush although butch in appearance performed well straight out of the box, the only modification I made was to change the back piece to incorporate needle distance restriction, other than that it is as was supplied, the Neo has 2 cups which are both highly polished inside as well as outside, this makes them easy to clean, simply running the cup under water the paint just falls off, the trigger action is very responsive but firm, as I said in another thread I was delighted with it's performance and ease of use, had I paid twice as much for it I would still have been pleased.

H&S Evolution

Beautiful in appearance, this airbrush did not perform at all well, the trigger must be more than half way open before any paint will show, when the paint does come out it blasts to start with then almost immediately starts to clog, trying to paint fine lines is a task in it's self, all lines were constantly breaking up and it was impossible to get any kind of consistency, this was also supplied with 2 cups, both of which are highly polished, but only on the outside, the inside of the cups are rough to the touch and are so bad that even after cleaning the inside of the cup I used for the test is dyed with the colour I used (dark grey).

Another giant minus with this airbrush is that the trigger is further back than any other airbrush making it front heavy and really uncomfortable in the hand, it does not feel good at all.

I'm totally disappointed with this airbrush and if I had to give it marks out of ten it would have to be minus ten, an absolute waste of money which I don't have, there are lots situations where I just want to curse and this is top of the list.

Her below is a photo of the simple tests I did, I wanted to see how small and fine I could get and still be able show some detail, the quality of the work is not important here but I simply wanted to try lines and hairs, both airbrushes are using the same paint (Schminke aero colour dark grey) the paint is pre thinned therefore straight out of the bottle, the paint is also new so no particles that shouldn't be there.

In the photo the eye you see is 6cm corner to corner to give you an idea of how small the neo can get and still show detail, as you can see I gave up with the Evo doing the same eye, you can also see that the lines and hairs on the small paint brushes are more consistent with the Neo.

View attachment 2712

Note here the "V" in evo is the result of an unwanted sudden blast, the outside of the iris on the eye left was built up, but the other was done in one go due to control difficulty with the Evo.

My conclusion, although I still have every faith in German technology, I don't ever need to see another H&S airbrush, I shall sell this airbrush to someone I don't like as an alternative to murder, that would certainly be worse.

I will say if your looking for something to just look nice in the box, then this is the one.

One last final note: My $40 Black Bull airbrushes even now perform better than this piece of scrap iron.

 

[Stranger375]

Its pretty strange Mad, my Evo performs way better then my Neo and i dont have any of the issues your Airbrush is having :S .
My Evo is my fav airbrush here followed by my Iwata Eclipse. Also my Evo can get smaller lines and details then the Neo or the Eclipse is able to.
My cups are also polished on the inside and not rough at all, although the cup of the Neo is abit more polished but Iwata asks 56 Euros for a spare cup
compared to the 14 Euros for a spare cup for the H&S . I can only asume that something is not mounted absolutely correct maybe and some false air is maybe
going on in the airbrush. Same goes for the trigger, on my Evo i only have to pull back like a tiny bit and paint comes out imidiatly, its very responsive.
Did you check your nozzle if its totaly clean inside with a magnifiying glass ? Also check that the nozzle is sealed good on the end. If you get bubbles in the cup
then its a sign that the nozzle is not sitting correctly and air comes into the airbrush, i had that one time cause the nozzle cap was not completly tight.

 

[Mr.Micron]

One question on the H&S , Prior to using it for the first time did you lube it?
I have heard of others who have said the same thing about the way it sprays straight out the box and all of them said after a good lube they worked like magic.
H&S is a outstanding company but being where I live the parts and shipping for the parts if not in my budget.
Iwata is just a short trip across town so that makes it better on my pocket.

 

[Madbrush]

Stranger, I've always heard good things about all of the H&S airbrushes which is why I bought one, but for the money I paid for it I would have expected better quality inside the cups, My guess is I got the Monday version, which wouldn't surprise me since if it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have any at all, and no there is no air coming back into the cup.

Mr. Micron, I didn't lube it out of the box, but I didn't lube the Neo either, I will strip down both tomorrow and check that all the parts are secure and properly seated, and lube everything at the same time, However I'm not hopeful that that will make much difference, if I can find a way to make the trigger a little stiffer that might stop the sudden blasting, the slightest touch on the trigger has an epic effect which causes me not to trust it with something important.

I can't under stand why the Neo does everything super and H&S doesn't, but even if I can fix some of the small problems, 2 major problems still remain and that is the bad finish inside the cups and the fact that the trigger is too far back, it's totally out of balance.

Out of fairness I'll lube up both and retest them.

I actually downloaded a really intricate reference because I was excited to put the Evo to the test on something with lots of detail, but it might be a while before I dare to try it,

Watch this space guys, the saga continues.

 

[Stranger375]

I just had a look at my cups again, specialy the big one since i never used that one yet. Its not as shiny inside as the cup of the Neo, but doesnt feel rough when test it with the finger.
Same goes for the small one, paint is easy to remove from mine. Could be you have a monday version, but would be strange that some cups are rougher then others. I had really rough cups
on 2 of my chinese brushes. I used car polish for withered paints that looks very milky to polish my cups. It helped alot and they were smoother. One cup i even worked with the dremel and a polish
head that came with it, also in combination with the car polish. Ok i guess about the trigger thats personal preference since i love that easy going trigger action, but i can imagine when you worked
alot with other guns before that light trigger is going to be a problem. You can try to add a stiffer spring inside for the trigger, that should make it stiffer. Most people i know that have a Neo and a Evo
cut off a bit from the spring of the Neo to make it lighter like the Evo´s . About the balance factor mine is pretty good, but i have the Silverline Evolution that has a heavier handle with the screw in the back
for the needle restriction.
Keep us updated about this here and how it goes

 

[Madbrush]

Stranger, I've just thoroughly cleaned and and lubed both airbrushes for another testing, I've also managed to stretch the spring in the evo which has stiffened up the trigger somewhat, it actually now feels more to my liking, I'm sometimes a bit heavy handed so I need the the trigger to keep me at bay.

I couldn't believe how easy it was to take the evo apart and put it back together, that's a big plus, since my black bull brushes all take ages, the nozzle set up is really clever, and it is generally easy to clean, actually the neo is also easy to clean.

I've lightly oiled the the cup on the inside and cleaned it off again, hopefully that will help some, I honestly believe that something has been missed in the cup to make it so rough, I'm going to email H&S and maybe the'll send me a new cup.

I'll be testing both again tomorrow and hopefully the'll both do well, if the Evo does OK, I'm sure I can get used to the balance, maybe slap a lump of lead on the back of it like I do with my planes,

I'll keep you posted. fingers crossed.

P.S. the trigger stiffness of the Neo was perfect from the beginning, I find it an excellent airbrush for the money.

 

[Madbrush]

After stripping and lubing up the Neo and H&S Evolution airbrushes I performed another test today here are the results;

I decide to also test both of them against one of my Black Bull airbrushes which generally has all the same specifications as the Neo, the Balck Bull actually has a bent needle which is why I decided to break out my Neo in the first place, bear in mind that every piece work I have posted on this forum were all done with the Black Bull airbrushes, even the tigers in my gallery, since all my brushes are gravity feed, I generally work with 2 or 3 brushes at the same time due to colour changes.

View attachment 2724

As I had hoped the Evo performed better after cleaning and lubing as well as one or two minor adjustments, however still not what I would expect for such an expensive toy, as you can see in the photo I started writing the name Evo at the top of the page, with no change in pressure, distance or otherwise it starts to fade at the end of the 3 letters, after a good blasting out I continued to try some lines and dots, here it performed quite well, then the eye, because I felt sorry for H&S I let it have 2 tries, I was not impressed with either, and as you see it just couldn't handle the bottom lashes, the small paint brush and planet were in my opinion acceptable, sudden bursts of paint are still an issue and the cup will not clean even after trying with cellulose thinners.

The Neo after cleaning and lubing performed exactly as it did in the first test, which I expected, for such a cheap tool I simply can't believe what this is capable of, the trigger is so responsive it allows me to work and build up at my own pace, the little discrepancies you see with the dots and such are more to do with the idiot behind the airbrush, but the brush it's self gives me an instant feeling of trust.

The black Bull airbrush with no preparation before hand and as I said with a bent needle which I did straighten some, performed as good if not better than both the others, it did have problems with the dots, but that is due to the diminished state of the needle.

All 3 brushes were able to write my name just as small as if I'd done it with a pen.

My conclusion today is that I will continue to use the Neo without any further modifications, it definitely fit for the purpose and I trust it completely, I will spend the time and money bringing all of my Black Bulls up to scratch since I've never ever had problems with them, any problems I did have were down me my self bending needles and not caring for them properly, I will continue to use the Evo only for practice and I certainly would not trust it to attempt a real painting, the evo came with 0.4 needle and nozzle which I will try at a later date, but for the time being this has left me sorely disappointed and my patience is now all but non-existent.

I bought 3 Black Bull airbrushes all at the same time, they cost €49 each, they performed to my liking and the parts are incredibly cheap, I was so impressed with them all that I bought another for clear coating, but this one requires more air than compressor can supply without over heating, all parts are standard for the first 3 airbrushes and fit in each of them, which means that all 3 can be chopped and changed to meet different needs, some of the parts even fit the Neo which is where needle restriction came from.

It is my opinion that Harder & Steenbeck ask far too much money their airbrushes, this point was also made by my paint and supplies vendor in Rotterdam, when I asked why they did not sell H&S, he replied that Iwata airbrushes with the same capabilities cost less and since H&S refuse to justify their prices, the shop refuses to sell them.

 

[Stranger375]

Hi again Mad,
About the cups i would really contact H&S about them cause i think thats not normal. I just made a photo of my Evo cup just to show you here how it looks and you can compare it to yours.
It does look abit rough on the cup as you can see the marks of the machine polishing, but when i let my finger slide in the cup it feels very smooth even the cup of the Neo is slighty more polished.
I also wanted to suggest you try out the 0.4mm needle nozzle combination if that is going to be any different. Although i havent used my 0.4mm nozzle setup yet so i cant tell how mine performs with it.

 

[Madbrush]

Hi again Mad,
About the cups i would really contact H&S about them cause i think thats not normal. I just made a photo of my Evo cup just to show you here how it looks and you can compare it to yours.
It does look abit rough on the cup as you can see the marks of the machine polishing, but when i let my finger slide in the cup it feels very smooth even the cup of the Neo is slighty more polished.
I also wanted to suggest you try out the 0.4mm needle nozzle combination if that is going to be any different. Although i havent used my 0.4mm nozzle setup yet so i cant tell how mine performs with it.
View attachment 2728

Hi Stranger this is exactly the same model I have except mine does not have the pressure regulator under trigger, but my cups look a lot worse than yours does, they have a yellowish tint to them, they actually look like they haven't bothered to polish them at all, I haven't used the big cup either yet, but it looks the same as the other, I tried to make a photo but when I try to get close enough the photo is blurred.

But fixing the cup problem won't fix all the other problems, I will try the 0.4 needle sometime but I need to wait until my temper and patience return to normal, if I don't it could all go out of the window at the sight of one more little problem.

On Monday, Also when I'm calm, I plan to email H&S and describe everything that's going on, but I've heard stories of others being told they are simply doing something wrong and H&S refuse to help, if that is the case I'll make a video of it in action and put that on youtube and make sure the world and his dog knows what sh*t I ended up with, but hopefully it wont come to that.

I actually messed around with it a little more after today's test and it seemed to behave a little better for about ten minutes then suddenly starting spurting again, I cleaned one more time thoroughly and tried again but it was the same, I even tried thinning the paint more and tried some createx a little thicker with more pressure, but still the same.

I didn't mention it before but at no time during all of this did I have any spidering, just sudden spurts and then back to almost normal, I couldn't trust this airbrush to comfortably paint a line or a stripe on an important painting without messing it up with a blob whenever it feels like it.

I believe as I said that got the first model off the belt on Monday morning and the quality control officer had too much "Bier und wurst" the night before,

I'll keep you updated, I'm not finished yet.

 

[Stranger375]

Yes i also believe it must be a total monday model, also cause of those cups as you describe them. I can just imagine too good how you feel about it not working as you expected, i would be also pretty
mad about that fact. Can only say mine works really great and i have the 0.15 mm nozzle inside mine that would be even more problematic you would think with paints and stuff. Well im curious how H&S
will reply after you sent them a mail. I also realised i have much less spidering with my evo then the other brushes at the same paint thickness when i get close to the canvas or paper.

 

[Madbrush]

Yes i also believe it must be a total monday model, also cause of those cups as you describe them. I can just imagine too good how you feel about it not working as you expected, i would be also pretty
mad about that fact. Can only say mine works really great and i have the 0.15 mm nozzle inside mine that would be even more problematic you would think with paints and stuff. Well im curious how H&S
will reply after you sent them a mail. I also realised i have much less spidering with my evo then the other brushes at the same paint thickness when i get close to the canvas or paper.

Hi Stranger, I'm calmer now and I'm sure the solution will come eventually, when I mentioned spidering, I meant that because there was no spidering, the problem wasn't the paint being too thin, I had no spidering at all even close up, just sudden spurts.

I have only tested with Schminke paint, but I have some createx and I think I'll try the evo again with over-thinned createx and see how that goes, when my Scminke paint is finshed I plan to move over the createx entirely, I don't like the idea that Schminke is pre-thinned and I would rather decide for myself how much to thin, some things have to be done with paint straight out of the bottle.

 

[Stranger375]

Im also using Schmincke alot here, also have Wicked but have to say i dont like Wicked much yet. When i reduce the wicked black for example to make it flow like the Schmincke black, its weaker then the Schmincke black.
But its also a personal preference and i need to use the Wicked more often to get used to them i guess. I wanna paint more on hard surfaces and then the Wicked is better for sure since it has more bite. Most of my Wicked
i cant shot straight out of the bottle with my airbrushes, it might work with a 0.5mm nozzle and more pressure i guess. But also depends on the colors, white and black are thickest, yellow and blue are thinner. I wanted to try
out the Trident paints but then i seen my online dealer now imported the Spectra-Tex from Badger and i bought some bottles of the colors like blue´s yellow orange and so on. I have to say i like them alot from trying them out.

Oh but forgot to mention i dont use the white from Schmincke since i didnt like it so much. I mostly use white from Hansa pro color, or the Wicked detail reduced alot. I also have one small bottle of the Trident white but havent
used it much yet since i dont have the reducer from trident yet.

Only advice i can give to everyone, buy one or 2 bottle of the paints you wanna try and see if they suit your painting style. Hear it so often that someone loves a paint and a other person hates it.

 

[Madbrush]

An update: I tried the Evolution today with createx, I tried both black and white and with createx nothing comes out of it at all, even after thinning to the point where the paint is almost all thinners, it starts to spray then just stops, only when the trigger is pulled all the way back do I get paint, so there is absolutely no chance of being able to get any kind of detail with it.

I tried cleaning and lubing it again and although that helps to start with, the problem just continues.

I am totally not amused, I'll never have anything else from Harder & Steenbeck again, even if they offer me a new one, the trust is gone and I would rather choose another brand than risk the same problems again.

 

[Stranger375]

Can totaly understand how you feel about it. Something is totaly wrong with the model that you got, thats for sure.
I would be still curious if you have the same problem with the 0.4mm nozzle setup, if not then i would think the there is
something wrong with the smaller nozzle or the head mount of the smaller setup.

 

[Madbrush]

I might try the 0.4 set up, but to be honest I just want to throw it now, I can't believe my so called knock-off's can out perform it, I'll send them an email but I don't want anything from them except to tell them what I think, if there stuff is as good as most people say I find it hard to accept that this one made it out of the building.

There doesn't seem much point to the 0.4 set up since the Neo does it so much better, I would rather go for a 0.3 Iwata.

 

[Stranger375]

Today i was painting and almost threw my Iwata Eclipse against the wall . Kinda had similar problems like you with the Evo today with the eclipse. Wanted to do details and 1st nothing then got a blast
out of a sudden. The paint was pretty thinn already since it spidered like hell sometimes. I was using the Wicked today since i painted a metal panel, and i always realise that the wicked are so bad with
tip dry and also paint dries up alot in the cup on the sides while painting.

 

[ranhalen]

ok, bummed, but damn you got some great practice work, i can imagined that you are going to be a master at the airbrush madbrush,

 

[drobbins12]

Stranger,
Whad you think about the spectra tex, I got alot of tip dry with it. I have this golden medium made for t shirts. It's suppose to make it adhere to shirts and have a longer life on the shirts. I think STex is more for fabrics, so that might help. Haven't tried it yet though.

I also here what you are saying about wicked drying in the cup, my detail white drys to the cup really bad to the point that it hardly comes off with rubbing alcohol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Madbrush]

Stranger,
Whad you think about the spectra tex, I got alot of tip dry with it. I have this golden medium made for t shirts. It's suppose to make it adhere to shirts and have a longer life on the shirts. I think STex is more for fabrics, so that might help. Haven't tried it yet though.

I also here what you are saying about wicked drying in the cup, my detail white drys to the cup really bad to the point that it hardly comes off with rubbing alcohol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dylan, what is the Spectra tex white like for covering, would you recommend it, tip dry doesn't bother me much, I've accepted it's a part of airbrushing with any paint, so I just patiently pick it off and carry on, it's a whole different story when one of the so called best airbrushes in the world won't do a thing you want it to.

Stranger, since I am someone who can't and won't accept defeat, and since the relative success of my snake head practice, I've decided I'm going to do everything in my power to make this b***ard work, I want the fine detail it boasts about and I'm damn sure going to get it.

I'll email H&S like I said and if I can get a new needle and nozzle and some polished cups I'll be happy, I noticed yesterday that the cups are so bad the paint dries instantly on the cup almost as soon as it hits it, I think that it is possible that dried paint is falling off and getting into the nozzle and then basting out, that's probably why I don't see anything in the nozzle when I check.

I'm sure there is an ideal combination to make it work, I just have to find it.

 

[FARAM CUSTOMS]

thats the spirit mate. I have had times where i've cleaned my tallon and gone to start and nothing but bubbles in the cup. I had the lid on and it blew it off and it hit the roof. coved me (AND THE PROJECT I WAS WORKING ON) in paint. I cleaned it again, same thing. cleaned it again, same thing. pulled it down 6 or 7 times. then it just works again. this has happened many times. never have figured it out. my point is.If i did'nt know it worked i would have smashed it and gave up. maybe your brush has been damaged,or built wrong. might be why iwata test every brush before it leaves(the top range anyway) you will find your answer.