The fathers of the airbrush. These two are forever tied together in airbrush history for neither would have gotten nearly as far without the other. Peeler was the inventor, Walkup was the promoter; it was Edison meets P.T. Barnum.

   The story begins in Iowa in 1879 when Abner Peeler through  together some odds and ends with a small vaned wheel (it  resembles a tiny pinwheel) and the “paint distributer” was born. “Paint distributer?” - the name alone tells you he wasn’t exactly a marketing whiz. It was crude but it worked and since the T-shirt hadn’t been invented, he chose to dabble in a little retouch job on a photo of himself. It’s the primary use of the airbrush for the next fifty years. So what does Abner do? He sells it for ten bucks. He shoulda’ put it on eBay. Anyway, in October 1881 he files for a patent on his “paint dis tributer” and its granted in April of 1882. But wait what's this? There are two assignees(owners).

   Enter the flamboyant one time Bible salesman, Liberty Walkup and his older brother Charles, the silent moneyman. In 1881 they buy the rights to Peeler's invention and become assignees(owners) on the first airbrush patent. Peeler got $700 and an additional $150 for further improvements, most notably, the "walking bar(arm)." In the original airbrush, the needle was mounted directly to the "wind-wheel" and this limited the reciprocating movement of the needle. The only way to get more movement was to mount the needle toward the edge of the wheel. Since the distance of the needle from the center of the wheel is greater, it is mirrored at the other end of the needle. The needle tip now moves in a circular pattern under the air blast tube causing a sporadic pattern. To solve this problem, Peeler comes up with the "walking bar." It's a thin idler bar anchored at one end to a bellcrank and attached via an arm to the "wind-wheel" at the other. Now when the wheel turns, the "walking bar" moves back and forth. The needle has a bend creating a small post that in a slot of the "walking bar." The needle now has a greater movement and the end of the "walking bar" attached to the bellcrank allows the "walking bar " to be pushed toward and away from the wheel. This changing geometry allows the range of needle movement to be adjusted varying how much of the tapered needle is in the air blast; more needle equals more paint and vice-versa. We now have all the mechanisms in sync. He files for a patent on it in 1882 and it's granted on September 18, 1883.

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