I had one of the original Tamiya "Spraywork" air brushes back when I lived in the barracks in Sasebo and Pearl.
That was the single stage (really cheap) airbrush with the 12 volt RC battery powered compressor (which I modified to run off a plug-in 12 volt converter).
While the airbrush really was cheap, it held up for many years and survived a move across the Pacific while painting everything from 1/144th scale bombers to 1/24th scale cars and a resin 1/128th scale Los Angeles class fast attack.
The one big problem with any air brush is over spray. Even if you are religious about using a fume extractor, you're going to wind up with over spray somewhere, usually on the floor or the walls.
Like I said, you need to have a super-cool landlord in that case.
