The Murky World of airbrush fittings

[James Bisley]

Recently, I decided to buy a decent gravity airbrush I could use to cover detail parts. I already owned a very good Revell compressor along with Revell hoses, left over from my fathers business. These incedentally fitted fine to a cheap Airfix suction-fed airbrush I had bought.

I initially set my heart upon a Badger patriot 105, but after reading comments about how they did not fit to ordinary hoses, went for a Sparmax Max-4 instead. Open delivery, I found that the 1/8" BSP fitting did not connect to my Revell hose.

Upon more research and measuring (which should hve been done previously

[James Bisley]

Shucks, is there a word limit? Heres the rest:

) I concluded that the larger end of my hose is a 1/4" BSP and the smaller end an unspecified thread with 5mm diameter that apparently is common to Revell and Badger products. So yes, if I had gone for the Patriot after all it would have fitted fine and all would have been well. Such is the life we live.

I am posting this partly to share gen and mostly to gain it. Has anyone else had similar compatibility issues? Is 1/8" BSP the standard fitting in the industry or does it vary across all manufacturers? What is this unspecified 5mm connection? Any other helpful info?

Thanks very much!!!!

[peebeep]

I think the airbrush end of Badger stuff is unique to them and it's Badger that supplies the Revell equipment. Everybody else uses 1/8 or 1/4 in my experience. You can get a set of universal adaptors for under a tenner, posted off of Ebay. 

[James Bisley]

Ah! That explains it all. Thanks for the gen.

I've just bought a single £5 adaptor from everythingairbrush.