Last night I was airbrushing my Portuguese and walkers when I ran into some problems. The nozzle on my Iwata HP-C kept clogging on and off. I managed to finish the painting and decided to dismantle the airbrush to clean it.

I've never taken the nozzle off before, which should have been a clear warning signal...

To cut a long story short, I managed to strip the threads on the nozzle when I reassembled the airbrush. My fault entirely, I just had no idea it was that sensitive.

Ok, no problem, this is a well-known major brand airbrush. I'll just go to eBay and order some spares... well, I was in for a suprise and finally managed to learn a few things:

1) The HP-C is a discontinued product. It has been replaced by the HP-C Plus, which has larger threads on the nozzle (and now I know why).

2) Consequently, there's loads of spares available for the plus, but very few for the older model.

3) When the parts are available at all, they cost an arm and a leg.

4) To add insult to injury, most sellers charge almost as much for the postage as for the part itself. For a teeny tiny part that weighs less than the envelope it's put in!

5) Which very quickly adds up to almost as much as I paid for the airbrush in the first place (I bought it used).

I've sent out a few questions, let's see how this develops. But at the very least my airbrushing is done for a while now...

P.S. Why was it clogging inside the nozzle? Because my Vallejo Air paints kept drying into small clumps in the paint reservoir. Weird...

P.P.S. Sorry, I'm still so upset by this I really didn't feel like digging up stock photos to go with this.

maxxon