This set is being marketed as a low maintenance, affordable, airbrush and compressor kit. It should include everything you need to start airbrushing. It has an upper and lower setting to help control paint flow. You can also open or close the nozzle to increase or decrease airflow and hence paintflow. Unlike other Testors paint spraying sets, it comes with a compressor which mean you don't need to purchase propellant refills. This could be a long-term money saver. The kit appears to be easy to cleanup and a lost cost way to get started with airbrushing, which is why it was selected for review.

The compressor is maintenance free. It is double-insulated and has a polarized plug and thermal protection to prevent extreme internal overheating. It comes complete with on-off switch, 12 month warranty, and holding areas for the paint bottle. Maximum acceptable pressure is 30 psi.

Items Included

This Testors airbrush and compressor set comes complete with the following items :

- airbrush (Testors A270)
- piston-type air compressor (Testors 9169)
- 6 1/4 fl. oz. bottles of acrylic paint
- siphon cap bottle
- top-feed cup
- instruction sheets

The color paints included are blue, red, yellow, gren, purple and teal. These are ready for spraying and need not be thinned.

Pros

The instructions (English and French) are detailed, easy to follow and very well illustrated. Cleanup is quick and easy. The paint and compressor can be used with other Testors airbrushes.

Cons

As the compressor doesn't have a tank, the airflow isn't guaranteed to be steady. This results in the occasional blobs of paint being ejected unexpectedly which can be very unwelcome.

When you attach the paint bottle and start up the compressor, it can take a while for paint to actually be released. Hold down on the airbrush and, with some luck, paint will begin to flow after a bit.

Unfortunatly, controlling paint flow doesn't quite work as well as one would hope. When turning the nozzle to increase or decrease flow, most settings won't allow for any paint to be sprayed at all (air only). The airbrush would only allow for rather narrow sprays of paint.

Note that the above observations were made while using paint supplied with the kit. This is not a matter of not thinning paint correctly for airbrushing.

The bottom line is it simply didn't meet expectations. During testing, it proved to be unreliable and couldn t be controlled as expected. The compressor will be put to use, so it won't be a complete waste.