Central Pneumatic Professional Air Compressor and Air Brush
Model 95630
(www.harborfreight.com)

This is the Central Pneumatic Professional Air Compressor and Air Brush Model 95630 that I purchased from HarborFreight.com. I have always wanted to try air brushing but the cost was always too much for me. Lately I have developed and need to large flat surfaces and basically hand brushing was not able to give me a smooth finish. A local Harbor Freight open my town and they had Compressor and Airbrush kits for about $80. I thought it was a good starting price so I was able to get it as a father’s day present. I am glad I did because I have really enjoyed using it, and have a had a lot of good results. It is great out of the box but just needs a few little bits to make it better (click here to see what) or here for a even better setup. This is the first time I have used an air brush or compressor so please take this review with a grain of soft.

I will start with the compressor. It works very well and is very quite. About as loud as a noisy refrigerator I feel safe running in the house after the kids are asleep and it not waking them up. It produces a steady stream of air and I have notice no pulsing. I have used it for a few couple hour sessions and the compressor did get hot but I had not issues from it at all. It comes with a moisture trap with seems to work fine, and a regulator as well. The regulator is my only complaint. While it does work fine at 60 PSI it can’t get it run at lower pressures need for air brushing. I have talked with a few people on the net and they stated that I can turn screw (that is not that noticeable) at the bottom of the regulator and it reduce the pressure. While this looks to be true I had all ready started down the path of Add-ons to correct the problem and make it more convenient. But even at 60 PSI I could still work pretty well. I would just hold down the air brush till the pressure dropped to about 20-25 PSI and the start adding the paint and things worked pretty will. Lines and Dots are a bit had to do but I think that is more along the lines of me not being any good more than a compressor/brush issue.

Older setup	Current Setup with better guage

I got the compressor with an airbrush so I could go ahead and start learning now to use the Air Brush and not just sit looking at the compress waiting till I get a air brush. I plan on getting an Iwata HP-C but this one is pretty handy and I will still use it after get an Iwata. The Air Brush is a good quality (as far as I can tell). It’s a suction feed brush which requires a higher pressure. The jar can hold a fair amount of paint. I can do pretty good one lines. I used it to panel line my Revell Viper, and only had a problem with clogging towards the end. I can still see this brush getting used for priming and terrain painting where I will a larger amount of paint. I have successfully used Model Master Acrylics and Vallejo paints though it. It took a little bit to learn how to thin the paints right. I think in the long run an airbrush will save on paint.

Additions to my set up. but check out ther ever better setup lower down on the page

I need to get my pressure lower so I did some checking and found out I could add an additional regulator to my system and user it to lower the pressure. That also had an added convenience that I could a regulator next to me so I would have to fiddle with the compressor to change my pressure. So I went to my local Lowe’s (www.lowes.com) and picked up a little regulator and hose only to realize that most standard hose and regulators came in 1/4” connectors while all my airbrush stuff was 1/8” connectors. After much grief and searching for adaptors I could not find any so I posted a question over at www.finescale.com forums and a gentlemen told to just make one over in the plumbing section. Well I look and they have a wall of parts and adapters. I set out on my logic quest to figure out which part went where and connected to what and make sure the male went to female and the right size connected to the right size. Figured it out and bought what I need came home hooked it up like a jigsaw puzzle and it worked. Everything connected. Turn on the compressor and it leaked air everywhere. So I thought about it and went back and got some Teflon tape. Same thing happened. After talking with my dad he suggested a “Thread sealing putty” which was right by the adapter (go figure). Well I squeses the threads full and wrap in Teflon tape, wrenched it all together, and now it works great. Looking back it was not that hard at all especially if I had done a little research first. Below is the list of what I purchased to update the compress (pictures below that), followed by a few tip if you want add something like this to your setup. I spent about 30-32 bucks to update it. It is very handy to have a regulator right by where I paint.

List of Parts I used (all purchased from lowes):
Kobalt 1/4 NPS air adjusting valve 14$
Kobalt 1/4" Recoil Air Hose 8$
2 Watts A-732 Pip Coupling 1/4" FIP 3$
2 Watts A-738 Pipe Hex Brushing 1/4" MIP X 1/8" FIP 3$
1 Watts A-717 Brass Pipe Nipple 1/8" MIP x 2" 17000717 2$
Threading sealer 1$
Teflon Tape 1$

With this list and would be very easy update the setup, and should only take about 30 minutes to an hour to complete. But here are some tips I strongly suggest

Tips
1. Use thread sealing putty
2. Use Teflon tape
3. You have to use wrenches to tighten all the parts, if you don’t you are wasting time.

A Much better setup.

Here is my compelete setup	The Dials when compressor is runing The second guage is run at much lower pressure.

The older setup had a problem with the regulator. The gauge would not change when you change the pressure gauge. When you had it set to what you want and the compressor turns on it would go over the pressure setting. But it would run at the pressure it was set to once it runs down. I knew enough to know that was not right. So after some talking on the net I updated to a better regulator. This one works so much better. I can turn the dial and the pressure changes to match what it is set to. It does not over pressure, and runs at what it is set up. The Mini Pressure Regulator is only 5 bucks more than the other one, and you don’t need one of the couplings saving a dollar or two so the price difference is only about 2-3 dollars. I would defiantly buy this set up instead.

Extra Large Labeled Image

This is the current list of Items you would need
Kobalt Mini air regulator 221026
Watts
2 A-738 Pipe Hex Brushing 1/4" MIP X 1/*" FIP 17000738
1 A-732 Pip Coupling 1/4"FIP 17000732
1 A-717 Brass Pipe Nipple 1/8" MIP x 2" 17000717
Great White Threading sealer
Teflon Tape

The only thing that may be an issues is the 1/8 hole. The little plug that comes with it is a bit small so you would have to use a threading sealer and Teflon tape. I put the threading sealer on did about 4-5 wraps in Teflon tape. Since I already had it, it was not a big deal. You may be able to eliminate one more adapter but you would have to buy a 1/4 cap to plug the other hole. Here is a picture of the trouble spot. But it was not a big deal at all. The leak was very slow but I did not want any at all.

I would still folow the tip though, the thread sealer and telfon tape are very useful

Contact me at josborn@happinessismandatory.com