Side feed, top feed or bottom feed

[Al_dd]

Hi guys. Looking to buy a new airbrush as compressor. But sure whether to get a bottom, top or side feed. Looking at the Eclipse range. It's going to be for body painting, both broader and finer detail. Just wondering what people think of the different types when it covers body painting? Also, any suggestions on a decent compressor to go with? Thanks heaps in advance

 

[Airbrush Dreams]

Hi guys. Looking to buy a new airbrush as compressor. But sure whether to get a bottom, top or side feed. Looking at the Eclipse range. It's going to be for body painting, both broader and finer detail. Just wondering what people think of the different types when it covers body painting? Also, any suggestions on a decent compressor to go with? Thanks heaps in advance

I would do bottom feed and have a top feed for close detail work.


Paint on

 

[musicmacd]

All of them!! A side brush would be handy for all the funny angles you may do??

 

[Al_dd]

Ah OK. Sounds about right. I reckon I'll probably get both and maybe get the side feed when I have a bit more money. Thanks guys

 

[AndreZA]

Bottom feed all the way for quick colour changes. A 0.5 nozzle is enough for detail needed on a canvas the size of a human.

 

[Vladimir]

For that I'd buy side feed and bottom feed.
For side feed you can attach either small side cup or big bottle of any size, so in general with the side feed you can cover all your possible needs and paint at any angle.

 

[Al_dd]

So for quick color changes with the bottom feed for example, should I get multiple bottles that can get interchanged, or, do I have to get multiple airbrushes altogether? Cos i figure you'll have to screw the different airbrushes on and off each time you want to change color, unless I can attach multiple hoses. I'm hoping it'll be easier to just change the bottles for cooler changes.

 

[JackEb]

with the siphon feed (bottom feed) you have multiple bottles of colour, one bottle with water for a clean up between colour changes (there is still some paint in the brush until the 'new' paint gets pushed through)
theyre a push fit, not a screw in fit.
just watch that you need to make the bottles airtight when youre not using them. Apart from the attachment tube there is a hole in the lid of each to avoid a vacuum. If you are mixing the paint with something else then you'll need to consider what the 'shelf life' of it will be, you may not be able to have it sitting around longer than a few days.

 

[Nessus]

I recall reading somewhere that body painting is usually done at low pressure to avoid any possibility of embedding paint particles in the skin. If that's true, then a bottom feed would be undesirable, as they stop working at pressures below 20psi or so.

If you want one brush to do everything, I'd say get a side feed, as that will give you the color capacity of a bottom feed, with the low pressure ability of a top feed. You won't be able to do low pressure and large capacity at the same time (large capacity side bottles emulate a bottom feed, and thus need more pressure), but you'll be able to hot swap colors like a bottom feed while using low pressure like a top feed.

TBH though, I'd recommend two brushes: one specialized toward broad coverage, and one towards detail. Set them up on a manifold (two hoses) instead of a single hose and/or quick connector. I'm a model maker rather than a body painter, but I have a thing for large scale and 1/1 stuff, so that's what I do.

Whether hot swapping color cups is really faster than rinsing a top feed cup depends on brand/model. Some bottom/side feeds flush clearer than others.

Are you looking at doing studio work, or more fairgrounds/boardwalk type stuff? The former will give you a bit more room to breathe and go to town with the details time-wise, but the latter selects hard for speed, so which one you're doing may have a large impact on what kind of setup is optimal.

 

[JackEb]

I recall reading somewhere that body painting is usually done at low pressure to avoid any possibility of embedding paint particles in the skin. If that's true, then a bottom feed would be undesirable, as they stop working at pressures below 20psi or so.
.

Very valid point Nessus, I hadn't thought of that !! temporary tattoos LOL

 

[Vladimir]

If something is on the skin, no matter what pressure it's applied it will be inside If it has such properties, certainly.
You all know, that even reducer's vapors go through the skin. Any paint has it's reducer. In some cases they dangerous like in urethane solvent based paints. In some cases less dangerous like in waterbased. But I don't want to have any paint on my skin, even that for bodypainting!
Paint has pigment (colour itself), binder (that "sticks" pigment to the surface) and reducer (to bring desirable consistency to the mixture of pigment and binder). Paint mixture has also other additives for certain paint properties. So, we could talk how all those components are very useful for the health...

 

[Al_dd]

Sheesh, that's lucky. I was just about to buy the siphon feed online.
I'm trying to organise it for my partner who mostly works in studio. The thing is, she has limited movement in her left arm due to a stroke that happened about two years ago, so I also need to take the least fidgety option without compromising too much. Do you think the side feed might be harder to manage one handed? She can partially grip things with her hand though, so it doesn't have be completely manageable with one hand.

 

[JackEb]

I operate all my brushes one handed unless I'm doing minute detail, then I use the other hand to steady it because it seems the more I concentrate the more my hand shakes LOL.
the side feed is brilliant, I thought balance may be an issue but I don't notice any 'off' balance with it.
Cleaning with only one hand will be a challenge, but it can be laid out on a towel on the table and lay her other hand on top to hold it steady on the table. It will take a bit longer but definitely do-able

 

[Al_dd]

Ok great. Sounds like the side feed's the way to go.

So you reckon I should use bottles on the side feed for quick color interchanges like with the bottom feed? (Are there smaller ones I should be using? Or do the regular sized ones suck up all the paint anyway?)

 

[JackEb]

it will come with a small side feed cup, you can buy addition cups/bottles for them, just make sure you buy 'side feed' bottles, not 'siphon feed' bottles.
The side feed bottle have a right angle tube, where as the siphon feed have a straight angled tube.

Side feed

Siphon feed EG iwata eclipse BCS

 

[Maple Art]

For the "human" canvas the iwata eclipse BCS gravity feed quick color changes . If your thinking of 2 airbrushes the side feed for detail and the syphon feed for spray-out. As for PSI mentioned above running the eclipse BSC @ spraying pressure of 15 - 18 works really well and is one of the most popular airbrushes for that application.

 

[RebelAir]

Consider an Badger Anthem..It does both detail and one of the broadest, of the shelf spray patterns when opened up full tilt But does have an exposed needle and as your not tattooing someone it will pay to be careful LOL..But agree with most, siphon or side is prob the better idea whatever brand you go for quicker color changes, but that also depends if time is an issue or your going a bit commercial with it..gravity will do the same, just takes a bit longer and after a few days practice you can color change pretty quick with one anyway. Good luck

 

[Basstrack238]

The anthem is a beast, I have one and a patriot also, they have an interesting spray pattern for sure. You can really let em rip wide open. You can also get detail needle and nozzle for it to tone it down a bit and get better detail performance. Really nice guns, I use my anthem for metallic because the big nozzle size.

 

[Airbrush Dreams]

Every temp tattoo person that have come to the fairs by where I live have used bottom feed Eclipse. You can run at 15 psi if needed and use a paint for temp tattoos. They are water based or use something like E'TAC PS that does not need solvent. Also you can get away with one brush and just have a bottle for each color. If you do top feed you would want a brush for each color. Do a search on people that do body painting and see what the use. Side feed are good and with the bottle you can limit to one or two brushes but the do take a bit more to clean between colors. My best suggestion would be a bush for each hue. What I mean by that is one for white, one for black, one for red shades, one for yellow shades and one for blues. This way cleaning between color changes will go quicker Even one for browns.

That's just the way I would set up if this was going to be a business type thing. If not one black one white and one color.


Paint on

 

[RebelAir]

Every temp tattoo person that have come to the fairs by where I live have used bottom feed Eclipse. You can run at 15 psi if needed and use a paint for temp tattoos. They are water based or use something like E'TAC PS that does not need solvent. Also you can get away with one brush and just have a bottle for each color. If you do top feed you would want a brush for each color. Do a search on people that do body painting and see what the use. Side feed are good and with the bottle you can limit to one or two brushes but the do take a bit more to clean between colors. My best suggestion would be a bush for each hue. What I mean by that is one for white, one for black, one for red shades, one for yellow shades and one for blues. This way cleaning between color changes will go quicker Even one for browns.

That's just the way I would set up if this was going to be a business type thing. If not one black one white and one color.


Paint on

On the color change aspect of siphons and sides..Its just a simple case of having a spare bottle with water or the cleaning agent you prefer..and is only really required when going from dark to light colors..Light to dark its just a case of taking the bottle of, spray through any residual paint in the gun and then attach the new darker color and keep going, the lighter color will blend and disappear within seconds..It isn't necessary at all to have multiple brushes unless you plan to use gravity's for the job..many pro's do have multi gun setups because they may prefer gravity guns as it does speed up the process by about 10 seconds LOL, but if doing 30 shirts a day, or 100 tatts that small amount of time does add up to be fair but realistically your talking a loss of a few minutes of your day..Saying that when I was stuck with a gravity and my Anthem was down, got just as fast color changing but it did waste more paint..What a gravity can't do is keep on keeping on so time is also lost constantly stopping to refill you paint..and in that process of stopping tip dry occurs and slows you even more..Plus one gun and 20 paint bottles is much cheaper to set up and start a business than 20 guns for individual colors.