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I wish I had read a thread like this about 6 years ago when I started with airbrushing. Bought the 20€ "starter" set from Revell to paint a tank model. It was a single action with a gas bottle. It worked horribly and almost destroyed the whole model. It wasn't cheap also, as the gas bottles cost about the same as the whole set, and it needed a lot of paint to spray! Then I decided to wait a bit to save money for a better one. Ended up buying a piston compressor and an "Evolution" double action. Worked better, but somehow I didn't get satisfied with it, either. Cleaning the gun was horrible (at least I remember it so) and the results weren't what I was looking for, too. Then I got an Iwata in a sale for about half of it's original price. It is very easy to clean, takes about 10 minutes. The first results were bad again, but I kept experimenting. Came to the conclusion that I had to use much lower pressure than I started with (ended up using under 1 bar). This gave the biggest improvement yet and I really enjoy it now. I wouldn't want to miss it again! It only takes a while until you get a feeling for it.
And I really second what Dave said, invest some money into a good-quality gun and compressor, and you will save both, money and frustration.
BTW, what you will discover when you start airbrushing and have painted with normal brushes before is that the main work shifts from the actual painting to the preparations before. Mostly masking (for getting hard edges) takes nearly as much time as you would have needed for the whole paintjob with a normal brush. This can be frustrating at the beginning. But it's really worth it!
Thorsten
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