Oh man, I certainly didn't want to scare you guys off buying one! It sounds like a lot of hassle, but it really isn't. You just have to be carefull and take care of it as it is a precision machine of sorts. Breaking it down to clean really isn't that difficult. My airbrush has maybe five parts that I can disassemble myself. And as long as you don't bend the needle or drop it "point first" into anything hard, regular handling is just fine.
The single action/double action thing is just up to preference. I've handled both and prefer the single action because there's less to have to do manually....plus, the thumb and pointer finger (which is what you usually use to operate on of these) are twitchy which makes a double action hard for me to use.
Too bad there isn't a place where you can go to handle both and just mess around and get a feel for them so you could decided which, if any, you'd like to buy.
I guess the main pain in the ass to what I wrote earlier is the air compressor situation. Harbor Freight does have noise-less compressors...I haven't looked at their price in a long time, but I think they are generally around the same price as the brush itself.
And don't let the word "noiseless" fool you. While the amount of noise it generates when recharging the tank is much less than a regular compressor, it is not completely without sound.
Using a regular air compressor will kill your hearing unless you have it in another room or some sort of separate enclosed space.
A "noiseless" compressor is often much smaller and you can have it right next to you WITHOUT the need for hearing protection AND someone sleeping in the middle of the night in the room upstairs often won't even hear it themselves.
If nothing else, I bet there are TONE of videos on youtube covering airbrushes and noiseless/regular air compressors that will help fill you in.
One thing I might suggest, but I don't know if they are even available anymore...
Testors used to have airbrush kits....cheap ones. There was the gun, a glass vial you attached to it to hold paint and then the whole thing hooked up to a can of compressed air...that canned air was the same size as a spray can of paint.
I had a few of these and they were cheap and gave me a feel for using an airbrush.
-drawbacks to these-
A-Mine didn't have the ability to make different thicknesses of lines. It was pretty much one thickness (I'd say a medium) and that was it.
B-there was absolutely no way to break it down to clean. You had to run warm soapy water through the paint bottle and hope that was enough. After a few uses of mine and trying to clean it, it was toast.
C-Having to used the "canned air" sucked. The regulation of the air pressure was inconsistent and would almost ALWAYS run out in the middle of a project. It also didn't help that I used up 50% of one can at a time just getting the paint thickness right.
I *think* there were fittings available that would let you connect it to a small compressor, but again, this was a long time ago and my memory sucks.
If they are available, they are a cheap way to get some feel for an airbrush and weather or not you want to sink your money into one of better quality. This is what I did, although it was MANY years between using the cheap Testors brush and buying a nicer "professional" brush. I've only used the one I have a handful of times, and not on anything really small, but I generally have nothing but good things to say about it's handling and maintenance.
