One of the things that I don’t like about reviews is that reviewers rarely go back and give an update, I want to change that. It’s been about 1 month since I have gotten my Harder and Steenbeck Infinity. I have had a chance to build several models with it and I have learned a lot about it and I feel that I can give a much better perspective of the brush and some of its shortcomings.
Ok – let’s start with the minor stuff, and let me qualify that these are not deal breakers for me in any way.
First off, this brush needs to be clean! Some airbrushes can get away without frequent cleaning (I am looking at you Patriot 105!) and some people have bragged about how dirty their brushes are and that they still spray flawlessly. Not the Infinity! The nozzle is prone to clogging if you don’t clean it out, which in turn means that it won’t spray properly. This means that you can’t get away with a quick flush before putting it away. Now don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to pull it completely apart and detail clean it, but you should soak the nozzle and give it a quick cleaning and pull the needle and wipe it down. This doesn’t take long, thanks to how easily this airbrush breaks down, so it’s not a massive task.
The second thing that annoys me just a bit is that there is a special tool needed to loosen the waist of the airbrush from the main body. Again, not a deal breaker, but I would have preferred it to be a finger tight assembly. I have tried to tighten it by hand, but the handle seals so well that I will unscrew it with the assembly.
Lastly, the 0.15 needle should not be included with the 2 in 1. The 0.4 needle is a great general purpose needle. It sprays primers and base coats flawlessly, but for pre-shading, it is not ideal. The 0.15 is an amazing needle – it sprays super fine lines with ease, but it clogs quickly with most acrylics that were intended to be sprayed without thinning – Model Air / Mig AMMO, etc. Yes, I know that I just need to add a couple of drops of thinner, but the 0.2 can spray without thinning and I feel that should have been included as part of the 2 in 1 vs the 0.15.
Now that I am done complaining, let’s get to the good stuff, and there are lots.
First off, this brush gives you a ton of control. Because there is a lot of travel in your trigger you can modulate your airflow at the trigger and because the trigger can be adjusted to be very soft, you can very easily feather paint. I was able to get the finest lines with this because of the trigger control, and pre-shading is a snap. Add in the memory function of the needle limiter and you have an incredibly capable fine detail brush. The trigger took a week or so to break in and to lose the stiffness, but once it did, and I figured out where I liked my tension set, it was a thing of beauty. It is silky smooth and once again, gives you a level of control that will astound you. I love the fact that you can adjust the tension on the fly without removing the handle allowing you to adjust it quickly and on demand. I would still love to see a slightly higher trigger, but I can make my own with some rubber furniture pads.
Spraying paint is a treat! Although it likes to be clean, when it is, it will lay down the evenest layers of paint you have ever seen. Even dreaded whites and yellows are no match for this airbrush and I was able to paint a starship on white with almost no spatters to be seen. I didn’t get any clogs while spraying and I had a fairly long spray session and I barely needed to clean the tip. Now to be fair, I was spraying with the 0.4 and I recommend that most users would want to use that needle/nozzle combo for most base-coating
The new needles are much better than previous iterations. Aside from the great new marking system (I love it), the new coating does resist dry tip much better and any dried on paint just wipes away with a little bit of Windex. I am not sure if they have changed the steel to be a stronger type, but I did bump my 0.15 and I expected to see the tip bent, but it didn’t do a bit of damage.
Cleaning this brush is easy. Because it disassembles so quickly and is so simple, it is a breeze to clean. As I said, it likes to be clean, so a quick soak of the nozzle and a wipe down of the needle and the color chamber and you are done. If you are going to run a pipe cleaner through the brush you need to be cautious as there is a triple seal made of very soft PTFE, so if you use too large a cleaner it will distort them and you will need to replace them. You can remove them with a small flathead screwdriver (or their tool) and remove that worry entirely.
And lastly, durability. I know I have only had it for a month, but it has seen daily use and it is my one and the only airbrush at the moment, so it has had hours of use and cleaning and spillage and cleaning and so on. It looks perfect and any paint that I do spill over it, wipes off quite easily and it buffs up nice and shiny with a second of polishing. The real test will be in a years time, but everything I have seen tells me that it will be fine.
So, the big question, do I still recommend the Harder and Steenbeck Infinity CR Plus? Absolutely. Is it an expensive airbrush? Absolutely, but it performs like an expensive airbrush. Do I recommend it for a brand new user? Absolutely, it is easy to use and you can grow with this airbrush. You don’t have to overcome any quality issues that you may experience with a cheaper airbrush, so you will learn good habits from the start. Can you get by with a cheaper Harder and Steenbeck? Again, absolutely. I think that most users who want a premium brush but don’t need or care about all the bells and whistles (memory cap, adjustable tension) can get by with the Evolution line. It shares the same DNA as the Infinity and you can get many of the same results and save yourself about $100 while doing it. But, I have owned an Evolution, and have sold it, and I have owned an Infinity and will not be selling it….so I think we know where I stand there!
You can watch my original review here:
