Price: around £127.50 inc VAT (The Airbrush Co)
Review by Geoff Coughlin (Oct 2012)
Our thanks to The Airbrush Company Ltd for supplying the review sample. Get this excellent mini-compressor here now at: www.airbrushes.com
Check out our Techniques Bank
A bit about the Iwata M1 gravity feed single action airbrush
Well that’s a bit of a mouthful for sure, but don’t let that put you off. What follows is a bit about this natty new airbrush and how we’ve found it in the first airbrush test. To that end, and following the principle that it’s almost always better to see how it works and see how it’s used than simply looking at still pictures, we’ve shot two HD video demos that you can watch below. There’s nothing worse than the usual posed static image you see in paper mags showing a finger sitting on the trigger of an airbrush – pointless really; this is another reason why we are accelerating the HD video content in SMN as fast as we can to really provide all of you with much better, interactive content.
Packaging and instructions
Excellent packaging gives a real feel of quality to this product – impressive. The instructions are simple and clear, as is the unit to operate as you’ll see if you read on…
To be honest, my initial reaction was mixed, not least because of the genuinely ‘revolutionary’ design and styling of the airbrush. As you can see, it’s much shorter than normal with everything contained in a well-designed body. It’s probably easier for you to watch and listen to me showing you the Revolution M1, rather than writing a whole load of bla here. in case you’re wondering, the M2 is very similar, it just has a bigger cup to hold your paint and 0.4mm nozzle enabling fine detail to 1” (0.4mm to 25mm), whereas the M1 featured in this review has the smaller cup (1/20 oz [7mm]) and 0.3mm nozzle (0.3mm-25mm spray). Impressively, The Airbrush Co that supplies these airbrushes has extended the manufacturer warranty from 5 to 10 years, showing their confidence in the type.
Use?
Now you’ve seen the features of the Revolution M1, how about how it sprays? How does it feel to use – it certainly looks different… Well, again I’ll show you in the video that follows and I’m really looking forward to this – anything that’s a bit different is always good to me!
Summary of features
- Gravity-feed with 1/20 oz (1.5ml) cup
- Single-action
- Internal-mix
- 0.3mm nozzle
- Fine detail to 1″ (0.3mm to 25mm) spray pattern with the one size nozzle
- Stubby handle design
- Replaceable internal PTFE solvent-proof needle packing for use with solvent-based paints
- Iwata quality and performance at a value price
- Designed for low pressure applications
Short test
Target model project: Airfix B-57G Canberra, 1:48 scale
Paint: Xtracolor enamel
Thinner: Cellulose thinners; paint thinned to about 50-50 mix
Airbrush: Iwata Revolution M1 single-action airbrush
Pressure: Iwata Studio Series Smart Jet Pro compressor set to 15psi pressure.
Summary
This is the first time that I’ve used this Revolution M1 single-action compressor and I have to say that I really like it – possibly even ‘love’ it having used it twice more since the video was shot. The best thing for me is the fact that you can adjust the paint flow on the setting dial (0-4) with one hand without having to put down your subject that you’re holding in the other – really clever this. Being used to double-action airbrushes it was odd going ‘back’ to a single-action but it is much better than the old designs where you had to put your model down, adjust the screw at the back of the airbrush and carry on – all a bit of a pain really and that problem is now solved.
Highly recommended
Geoff C.