You know those combined spray jars and airbrush holders? Total rubbish.
You can find them for a fiver via eBay or six times the price in an Iwata box, but either way, the design appears to be the same and it's flawed. They are ugly to begin with but soon turn into a messy history of your painting; they don't clean up well because the inside is frosted; the rubber seal starts to come out attached to your airbrush; and the support brace doesn't reach the desk, so it's not all that stable with an airbrush on it.
I had been keeping an eye open for a neater solution for a while. In my mind was a holder which could be mounted to the side of my painting station, look tidy, and not intrude on the small work space. There was nothing like that on sale, so I turned to the 3D print market. That threw up some better designs, but nothing ideal.
I wanted something which would make it very easy to pick up and replace the airbrush, but also hold it securely enough that it can't fall out even if the hose snagged, which really meant having to produce a bespoke design to fit my Iwata Eclipse like a glove.
I figured that if there's a market for designs to print yourself, maybe there's the opposite market: printers who will produce your own design. And of course there is. So I did some research into CAD, downloaded FreeCAD, watched tutorials, and got absolutely nowhere after a week. My low opinion of free open-source design software was not improved.
Attempt number two began with downloading the non-commercial version of Fusion360 and watching yet more videos. What a night-and-day difference to FreeCAD. After carefully measuring my airbrush and iterating through several possible ideas, my final design was sent to a printer on Etsy just a week later. The charge was a very reasonable £24 including delivery.
My design uses a neat mount into which the holder fits by a screw thread, which hides the three mounting screws. The holder can be unscrewed from its mount for cleaning, and if I ever need to alter the design to accommodate a different airbrush, it will be simple to replace.
The tapered opening surrounds the cup to keep the airbrush upright, yet it's a doddle to drop in and lift out. It even functions as a handy place to put the end of the hose when the airbrush is disconnected for cleaning.
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