Scale Plastic & Rail

Harder & Steenbeck INFINITY CR plus 0.15

Catalogue # 126554
See H&S dealer list for availability in your area.

Knowing that one of my other airbrushes had to be replaced due to being broken-down our amiable webmaster and good friend Jim got me this beautiful airbrush from German company Harder & Steenbeck to do a review and as a replacement.

We have had some other H&S airbrushes reviewed here at Scale Plastic & Rail with all of them making a deep impression on us.

Now, why did H&S issue another INFINITY 0.15? What´s the difference to the other ones we already have reviewed? The answer is as simple as caring: nickel allergy!

More and more people suffer from allergies those days, with some people being allergic to nickel. So far there are a lot of airbrushes on the market that a nickel plated. No, this sparkling finish on your airbrush isn´t chrome! It could be nickel!

The natural sweat of the skin and a nickel plated airbrush, for example, might cause some nasty and painful irritations. Not the kind of fun one wants to experience when airbrushing... So Harder & Steenbeck offers an airbrush with a nickel-free outer face to reduce the risk of an allergic reaction! The outside of this airbrush is completely chrome plated, with a threefold coating of chrome and nickel on the inside only! The chrome also gives the airbrush a high-quality appearance! The chrome plating is a more elaborate process than the standard nickel plating resulting in a slightly higher price of these airbrushes.

This package of this airbrush is very attractive. A beautiful brushed aluminium case inside a card sleeve accentuates the contents of this set, visible through a clear plastic lid.

The INFINITY CR plus shows the same high quality details as does the standard INFINITY airbrush, with a sparkling chrome plated front end up to the trigger. Then there are the other details as the golden middle piece, trigger assembly and Quick Fix. The rear part is finished in a beautiful and top quality satin red anodized finish. As my friend Jim says: "this brush looks like a million dollars"!

There is a small booklet in full colour with instructions for use in nine (!) languages given with this airbrush. This booklet is very complete with short chapters on available spare parts, commissioning, function, first exercises, cleaning, troubleshooting, and the written guarantee. This instruction booklet can be downloaded from Harder & Steinbeck's website here.

I really like it that nearly each component of this airbrushes from H&S are individually available as spare parts. This is especially advantageous in regards of the needle, which is available for a very convenient price (don´t ask who just ordered a new one...).

Working with a Harder & Steenbeck EVOLUTION airbrush since a very lot of years I learned to appreciate how wonderful they spray and how easy they are disassembled and cleaned without any trouble to get them together again.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The Quick Fix works perfectly, once you found the needed combination of colour mix, air pressure and trigger setting you simply click the silver button at the end and the trigger will be stopped on its way back at the setting established. Simply pull the golden crown in front of the silver button and the trigger is free to move full back again. Click the button again, and there it is: your previous setting! Simple, clever and very useful for airbrushing of fine details and paint jobs.

I found my way to disassemble my H&S airbrushes: in my eyes it is very dangerous to feed the needle back into the airbrush from the back. To disassemble my H&S airbrushes I remove the red anodized end piece and remove the needle securing nut. After having pulled the needle back far enough to get out of the nozzle I unscrew the nozzle cap with the nozzle from the airbrush. Having these parts out of the way I now push the needle forward, out of the corpus. Be careful, the 0.15mm needle is much more damageable than a 0.4mm needle as in my EVOLUTION! Guess who found this out...
I by an oversight touched the needle with a towel and slightly bend it at the very tip. The airbrush still works fine but I immediately ordered a new needle.

Having cleaned the airbrush I reassemble it by inserting the needle from the front of the corpus again, by doing so the very delicate tip won´t be damaged from any obstacle on the inside of the corpus. I pull the needle out from the end of the corpus until the tip is "safe" inside of it, refit the nozzle cap, and push the needle carefully forward into the nozzle. Secure the needle with the securing nut, et viola!

It is this easy to take this airbrush apart and to reassemble it that I have to say cleaning it really makes fun! And there is no danger cleaning it with any "hot" cleaners for the bearings and seals in this airbrush are made from solvent-proof PTFE! Nice!

I had to spray some Gunze acrylic colour these days and thought it a good idea to give this INFINITY CR plus a try. Thinning ratio was 50/50 paint to thinner. The paint sprayed perfectly wonderful, just as I expected it. After spraying I used Revell´s Airbrush Cleaner and it only took a couple of minutes and the airbrush looked like new!

CLICK TO ENLARGE

I did a test on a piece of paper just to try how thinly I could spray. Ok, I am not the greatest airbrush artist and this was my very first try with this new airbrush. The patterns I sprayed don´t look perfect but this simply is my fault, just having to get some experience with this beautiful new airbrush. As I noticed after doing these lines on the paper the needle´s tip already had been damaged by my own unwariness so the lines surely will have looked much cleaner with another needle. The damage is this diminutive that I only discovered it in one of the macro shots...

What I have learned: a 0.15mm needle not necessarily tolerates what the 0.4mm needle in my other airbrush does!

So what do we think?
This airbrush looks simply fantastic, giving you the immediate feeling having a piece of art in your hands. Each detail and part of it reflects the high quality of the product. Holding it in your hands you simply know that these H&S INFINITY airbrushes really are something very special!

I cannot wait to use this one on my next modelling project! The INFINITY CR plus with its 0.15mm nozzle with become the perfect partner for my other Harder & Steenbeck airbrush, the EVOLUTION with its 0.4mm nozzle! This tool is a modeller´s dream!

Very highly recommended

My sincere thanks to the good people at Harder & Steenbeck for the review sample!
To buy this and other H&S products, click this link, or the banner below.

Thomas Mayer