top feed airguns vs bottom feed guns

[one1wizard]

Hello all, I own all bottom feed guns, can some one tell me the difference between the bottom feed and the top feed air guns. My wife and I are looking to grow into body painting, nothing erotic, just pure fun, would you use a top feed gun and why.

We are being asked to do large flowers etc on the body and so fouth. So body painiting might be another street for me to look at making money as well.

Any feed back on this would be nice.

Tony
tonyinflorida1@verizon.net
atattoo4u.com

[sinaz]

From what i have noticed, the top feed are ok if you have a steady hand, and are not in a hurry

If your doing full bodies, they may be ok.. not good for festival settings and such tho..

[jjrardin]

I haven't used one, but I've watched a lot of videos..... and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night Seems part of the advantage is you can change colors easily if you only have one gun.... put a few drops of color in, spray, then some water or alcohol (please not again), then new color. The biggest draw back I see is that I am TOTALLY spoiled with the PP and consistently throw the hose/airbrush over my leg while I'm working and you can't do that with any other type of paint delivery.... I used some of the createx bottles while playing around one day and threw it over my leg... paint got all over everything. Yes I'm pretty sure it was red LOL. Oh yeah, you can't paint upside down either... which I do with the PP all the time.

[sinaz]

Originally Posted by jjrardin

Oh yeah, you can't paint upside down either... which I do with the PP all the time.

That has got to be one of the top benefits from color changer to multi gun..

I get myself in some predicaments that being able to go right upside down would be awesome. If your slick you can get quite sideways but not upside down without having ink leak out the little hole on the top of the bottle.

And yes i found that out the hard way

[jeffwisz1]

My mom actually uses a top feed for airbrushing cakes. Pretty much she is in a central position and turns the cake on the turntable. Does not look like she could use that at all for what I do, being in different positions and all.... But I could see if you were doing face or full body and taking more of your time doing it....

[ScatRD]

I use both myself, an Iwata Eclipse BCS on PP and an Iwata Eclipse HP-CS top feeder. The PP get's the most work but I like having the top feeder for very fine detail work.

The BCS has a .5mm needle/cone which can move quite a bit of paint, with it being on a pressure fed PP you can really blow and go.

The HP-CS is gravity fed with a .35mm needle/cone which allows for more precise control at the cost of being slower which is great for small details/shading and putting shadows behind the art.

Like everything else in this world it's a trade-off, you have to weigh the pro's and con's of each setup and figure out what works best for you.

[wildirishrose]

Tony, the basic difference is where you get the paint from. The bottom feeds you know have a bottle attached to them and require a suction to get the paint up to them, The gravity feed has a small "bucket" (jar) on the top which allows paint to flow down into the gun .
There are a few that have a cover for the paint jar- some screw on, some snap on. If I were going to choose one (under duress mind you) I like the screw on for tats because you can get upside down if needed. Not for long, but enough to get the job done!
For body painting, these dont hold enough paint. It will take you many, many refills to get full coverage on the body. You can fill a 3oz bottle and get everything done. It will take a while, but can be done. If you were going to get into full body art, I would suggest the higher flow auto type airbrush for solid coverage but honestly for what it sounds like your being asked to do, your current set up should work just fine. In reality most people just want some larger designs painted on the body, just about like what you are doing with the XL series . You can get creative and use large stencils from the craft store to get the basic designs and fill in with coordinating stencils you own already or visa versa.
You already have the talent and equipment, just roll with it!