DaveG
Airbush Analyst
I've just begun researching how old this brush may actually be, as I really have no way of telling. Wold produced brushes in Chicago up until the 80's sometime... I suspect this brush to be a good bit older than that, though.
When I received it, the brush itself looks to be in fairly good order - not much physical damage, bumps or bruises, but was quite dirty. It had the wrong size needle installed; the nozzle is a .2, but there was a .5 needle installed in the brush. There was however a .2 needle included in the box. The nozzle was partially plugged with dry paint.
The regulator cap is finely threaded, and like the older Thayer Chandlers, would allow the user to tune the airflow over the nozzle for best atomization. Wold did of course have a hand in designing Thayer Chandlers early brushes, after all.
Intricate head assembly, that is really beautifully machined. Head is actually a 4 hole design.
The brush responded really well to a good cleaning. A soak in restorer, a few trips through the ultrasonic, along with intermittent scrubbing with inter-dental brushes, and it really came around. I tested the handle, to find that is actually Bakelite, and not plastic. Bakelite was most widely used in the 30's and 40's being replaced by other plastics and polymers around the World War era of that later decade. I do, however, not know when Wold stopped producing their handles out of it...
The unfortunate part of this brush is that the very fine threading of the air valve is damaged, and it will not hold a spring to operate the air valve. I have been able to run air enough through the brush to test that it does spray, but am not 100% sure how well it will perform, just yet. I have been trying to contact Wold in New Zealand via e-mail without success, thus far. I understand the new production is a drop in for any of the older "A" style brushes. In the mean time, I purchased another used A1 to hopefully salvage enough parts off of to get this one up and running. I love this brush! It is much smaller than it looks in photo's, and feels wonderful in hand.
When I received it, the brush itself looks to be in fairly good order - not much physical damage, bumps or bruises, but was quite dirty. It had the wrong size needle installed; the nozzle is a .2, but there was a .5 needle installed in the brush. There was however a .2 needle included in the box. The nozzle was partially plugged with dry paint.
The regulator cap is finely threaded, and like the older Thayer Chandlers, would allow the user to tune the airflow over the nozzle for best atomization. Wold did of course have a hand in designing Thayer Chandlers early brushes, after all.
Intricate head assembly, that is really beautifully machined. Head is actually a 4 hole design.
The brush responded really well to a good cleaning. A soak in restorer, a few trips through the ultrasonic, along with intermittent scrubbing with inter-dental brushes, and it really came around. I tested the handle, to find that is actually Bakelite, and not plastic. Bakelite was most widely used in the 30's and 40's being replaced by other plastics and polymers around the World War era of that later decade. I do, however, not know when Wold stopped producing their handles out of it...
The unfortunate part of this brush is that the very fine threading of the air valve is damaged, and it will not hold a spring to operate the air valve. I have been able to run air enough through the brush to test that it does spray, but am not 100% sure how well it will perform, just yet. I have been trying to contact Wold in New Zealand via e-mail without success, thus far. I understand the new production is a drop in for any of the older "A" style brushes. In the mean time, I purchased another used A1 to hopefully salvage enough parts off of to get this one up and running. I love this brush! It is much smaller than it looks in photo's, and feels wonderful in hand.
. Very nice condition, with very minimal signs of wear on moving parts, and such.
