Scale Plastic & Rail

HLJ Original Version Beauti 4 Airbrush (0.3mm Nozzle)

HLJ Original Version Beauti 4 Airbrush (0.3mm Nozzle)
Catalogue # ATXP-B4B
Available from Hobby Link Japan for ¥6,650 (Around £50)

With its pink anodized aluminium body, adorned with “Beauti 4” on its side, you could be mistaken that you’d wandered into a beauty parlour. Indeed, this airbrush does appear to have been primarily designed for such, especially with its 15ml colour cup.

This set is presented in a sturdy plastic case, with a black base and foam lining inserts for the airbrush, and a clear, lockable lid. Full marks for this.

With the exception of the chromed colour cup and the forward nozzle related parts, the entire body of this airbrush, as mentioned, is made from anodized aluminium, and is therefore quite light in comparison to airbrushes that we modellers are used to. I’m not sure what the seals used within the airbrush are made from, but on inspection, look to be of PTFE.

This airbrush has a paint flow adjuster on the rear, which is a bonus, and the airbrush feels ‘right’ in the hand, and well balanced, despite its aluminium construction. The trigger isn’t quite as smooth as airbrushes I am used too, but I don’t think this is a quality issue at all, just more of the design of the brush. Trigger resistance is very good and feels like it will handle control very well.

Onto the stripdown. This airbrush is pretty much the same as any airbrush in this regard. The chucking nut for securing the needle, is bevelled inwards to facilitate smooth insertion, and minimise needle damage. The needle itself is very well made, and the point is extremely fine and flaw free. After removing the air cap and the nozzle cap, the nozzle presents itself. To remove this you will need to use the small spanner included in the set.

The trigger was a little more problematic to reinstall than I am used to, but that is probably just me being more used to other varieties. With a little practice, I managed with no problems.

Right, let us spray.

Using a 50:50 mix of my favourite Gunze paint, thinned with Mr Thinners.

From the outset, this airbrush simply didn’t like my mixture, so I thinned to around 30:70, but still ended up with some spluttering. A little more thinning didn’t really remedy this unfortunately. Still, I plodded on. Handling, as I thought, was easy enough, and paint control was acceptable, despite the involuntary spattering. When opened up to wide coverage, this airbrush came into its own, but as soon as I started to want to do anything fine, I struggled. Removal of the needle cap did make this a little easier, but not much. I imagine this airbrush may be more suited to spraying other mediums instead of what I routinely use.

So what do we think?

I really don’t know what to make of this. It feels like it should work really well, but I just couldn’t get it to toe the line. I'm quite disappointed. I imagine it would work well with tanning solutions and food colours, but not for modellers requirements.

Overall: 5/10

My sincere thanks to HLJ for the review sample used here. To buy this item directly, this THIS link.