My Vintage THAYER & CHANDLER Model A - Let's Check it Out!

the airbrush that we're taking a look at today is my vintage the and Chandler Model A now the design and the manufacturing of the model A goes back well over a century and when I bought this one years ago I was told that it was originally purchased in the late 1950s or early 1960s unfortunately there's no way that I could truly verify that even with the serial number here but that's what was told to me when I bought it so that would make this airbrush a little over 60 years old this particular airbrush is no longer in production it was phased out in the late 1990s but if you do want to pick one of these up you're going to have to buy it used like I did but the good news is that there seems to be plenty of them available online the model A is a dual action internal mix airbrush that has a side feed cup and this cup only fits onto one side of the airbrush it only goes on the right side and it is friction fit even after all of these years that cup is still held securely in place one thing that I've always loved about the model A is the size of it it's just such a small airbrush in the hand if I show it side by side with a modern airbrush like the new Infiniti you can see the difference and here it is next to a modern soar 2020 that I purchased within the last year compared to the soar which is already a short air brush with a close trigger the model A just looks tiny in comparison and here's a shot of the two needles the soar 2020 on the top and the model A at the bottom the trigger is very close to the nozzle with that side feed cup and in the hand this feels like no other airbrush available today it really has kind of like an old school drafting feel like you're holding a mechanical pencil and it's really a shame that this airbrush isn't manufactured anymore because I bet this design would be very popular today for detail work that close trigger design is definitely in fashion today with the modern airbrushes like the soar 2020 the Tumi models and the updated harder in Steam line for the trigger design it's a simple round pad on top with some grooves cut into it to give yourself some grip now I own a few Model A airbrushes and the Triggers on these are all just so soft and smooth and even after 60 or more years this trigger does not feel gritty or grainy at all it's a smooth motion pressing down and pulling back and as far as I know these are all the original parts nothing was replaced on this one right in front of the trigger you probably notice the small screw and this is kind of like the opposite of a needle limiter that you'll see on Modern airbrushes according to the instructions this screw is to regulate the size of the line and what it says is to turn the adjusting screw to the right to increase the size of the line and then to decrease it you turn it to the left so it's kind of like taking a double-action airbrush and turning it into a single action model so if that screw is screwed in when you press down you not only get air but you get paint as well at the front of the airbrush is the spray regulator and this is a bit different from what you'll see in modern airbrushes you may have noticed that it's not tightened down all the way and it needs to be like that in this airbrush in order for it to spray paint so according to the instructions it says for average work either line or spray screw the spray regulator all the way in and then you want to back it out 2 and 1/2 to three turns if that regulator is tightened down all the way this airbrush will not be able to spray paint so it's very important that you unscrew it a few turns to get the correct performance I believe that in the newer versions of the model A like from the 80s and '90s the regulator is supposed to be screwed in all the way like you'll see in modern airbrushes but again on this one if that regulator is screwed in too far the spray pattern just becomes overly coarse and grainy or it doesn't spray at all and finally the rear handle on the model A is nice and simple doesn't have any extra features like a cutout or a needle limiter so like always let's move along to a quick breakdown so that you can see all the internal parts I'll first remove that side cup which again is friction fit and then I'll unscrew the rear handle from the back of the airbrush and then I can unscrew this needle chucking screw and remove that small needle right out of the back of the airbrush and then I'll just unscrew this and place it to the side from here I'm going to start to unscrew this part that has some knurling on it this is called the tube shank and if I unscrew it all the way it'll remove right out of the back of the airbrush now if you own any modern badger airbrushes like a soar 2020 this spring assembly is going to look very familiar it is a bit different of course but it clearly shares the same DNA of a modern Badger airbrush on the back here we have the spring nut that's what it's called in the theer and Channeler manual and you could use this to adjust the spring tension of the trigger so again just like on a soar 2020 if you tighten this down all the way you're going to have a bit more trigger resistance and if you loosen it up the trigger is just going to feel a bit lighter and if I unscrew this all the way you'll see that needle tube the back spring and the tube shank fully broken down and that's the entire rear assembly it's a bit more complicated than some of the Japanese airbrushes but again if you do have a modern Badger airbrush this will all seem very familiar to you once the airbrush needle and the rear assembly is removed I can lift the trigger right out of the body of the airbrush it does have this small bar at the bottom like what you'll see on a custom Micron so you want to make sure that you rotate it 90° to lift it out of the body of the airbrush and then just behind that is the back lever out of any airbrushes that I own this is the most difficult one to put back together it really is kind of like a puzzle so if you have this airbrush I really don't recommend removing any of the rear assembly unless you absolutely have to moving along to the front of the airbrush we have the head system with the nozzle inside and that regulator up front now I'm not going to remove this because this head system is very precarious and the threads on this model A are not in good condition it took me a long time years ago to get this all sealed up with some melted wax as it's stated in the manual and it's just not something that I want to mess around with so I do apologize for that but I do have this this airbrush spring very well and I just want to keep it that way and again like I stated earlier it's important to have that regulator unscrewed about 2 and 1/2 to three turns if it's screwed in all the way this airbrush will not be able to spray paint well at the bottom of this airbrush you may have noticed that I added a badger quick disconnect and this fits it well it allows me to quickly connect it to my air hose but the threads of this valve casing here always tend to leak air even without a quick disconnect if I have it connected directly to a badger air hose so this is going to be a part that eventually I'd like to replace and so that's it for the breakdown I reassemble this airbrush off camera and that's just because that trigger lever is so difficult to put back in at least it is for me anyway so let's move along to the most important thing about this airbrush how it sprays paint and even after all these years this airbrush performs beautifully I've been working on this monochromatic portrait focusing on skin texture and for this painting I was using two airbrushes the harder and steambach infinity and my Creos PS 771 so for this video I just decided to switch over to thein Chandler Model A just to see how it compares to those two other airbrushes and the first thing that I always notice as soon as I use this airbrush is just how close your trigger finger is to that nozzle it really just feels like you're holding a pencil choked up all the way on the front for detail so you could really get in there get nice and close pull off some nice thin lines and textures at this point here I'm using using a RI piece of paper just to paint in some sharp edges with a bit of texture on them and the trigger is just so sensitive on the model a it's a very soft trigger too because this one does have the original spring on it so I just need to be careful with that trigger just apply a light amount of pressure to pull back because if I do pull too far back on this trigger the airbrush is going to put out a fair amount of paint a lot more than modern detail airbrushes it does a very good job at atomizing the paint even with the original nozzle and needle but I will say that the nozzle is not in the greatest condition on this one and would be a part that I would love to replace someday but now I have this airbrush along with some of my other vintage airbrushes mainly as collector Pieces Just for display so it doesn't really affect me much I'm not using this airbrush on a daily basis but if I was if this was my main airbrush I would definitely want to swap out those parts for this part of the painting I'm glazing some black paint over the bridge of the nose and the paint that I'm using here is sha Arrow colors it's reduced about 20% with distilled water and I'm spraying this paint right around 25 psi you can see that I'm holding my airbrush about 5 in away for this part just to put a very thin glaze of paint on and it's just doing a great job atomizing it so no complaints at all especially for the age of this model A for a quick line consistency test you can see that this airbrush does a great job I'm using the same paint here same PSI as well very good atomization nice sharp lines when I'm up close and if I back up a little bit I can get some softer transition positions and checking the trigger response rate this airbrush is absolutely incredible it reminds me a lot of a soar 2020 with that instant action the slightest and I mean slightest movement back of your trigger finger releases paint it's the same point every single time but it is very sensitive so if you do pull too far back it's going to spray a fair amount of paint so you do need to be careful here have some decent trigger control if you look at my trigger finger here you'll notice that I'm barely pulling it back just the slightest movement releases paint and then for writing out some letters in print this airbrush does an excellent job especially with that close trigger you really feel like you're right on top of the surface that you're painting if I want to push this airbrush a little bit farther for some detail I'm dropping the PSI here to around 20 and I'm spraying the exact same paint sha AOC colors is reduced about 20% with distilled water absolutely no issues with the control here the airbrush sprayed the paint beautifully very good trigger control as well and for an airbrush that's over 60 years old with the original nozzle and needle I'd say that's pretty impressive so there you go that's a little demo of the faen Chandler Model A and my thoughts on it it's certainly a legendary airbrush has a great history behind it and such a cool collector's item if you can get your hands on one and even though I absolutely love painting with this airbrush this one is going to go right back into the display case within my studio but I think I do owe it to myself to take some of these out more often than I do and really start painting with them because they're just so much fun to work with with so I do hope that you guys enjoyed this video I'd like to wish all of you and your families a very happy new year for 2025 and of course to wish you the best of luck within your own painting so thanks again I will see you guys back here next week