Lost and found

         - Great service! Garbled communication.

Grab a snack and sit down for my latest horror-story, with a happy ending!

About 6 weeks ago, the airbrush broke down on me. The trigger was no longer moving the needle. In the past, that was caused by the needle being stuck in the nozzle, but this time something was stuck in the interior of the airbrush, conveniently placed in an unreachable place. (the needle-thingie in the second picture).

I managed to soak it up a bit and clean out the worst, to get it moving again for one more session. A week later however, there was no more persuading it to move.

So, I was faced with a dilemma : 1) break it open, voiding the warrant, and potentially screw up, or 2) send it accross the Atlantic, potentially never seeing it again. (The trust in postal services is strong in this one).

Even though I bought it second-hand, Testors support (now "Rust-Oleum Product Support") said the lifetime warranty was still applicable and I could just send it to them for clean-up or replacement. Sending it accross the world in a secure way costs about twice what the airbrush is worth, so I opted to send via regular mail, but with Track-and-Trace. Yeah right, track ... no trace.

The first and last "trace" on the tracking page was the package leaving Brussels. Then ... nothing. 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks ... starting to worry now. Contacted postal services, who confirmed something had gone wrong with the processing of the tracking numbers, but they would fix it. A couple of hours later, it shows up as "Return to sender. Address unknown." (can't get this song out of my head now :-)). I was sweating all sorts by then, but luckily - 2 days later - it showed up as "Delivered".

I contacted Testors .... nothing recieved, sorry. Back to postal services. And ping-pong from there.
It's now 3 weeks after the supposed arrival of the package, nothing from Testors, postal services are "looking into it", so I was starting to become convinced I was one of the lucky ones with another "cool story" about the horror of postal services. If only I had just cracked it open and cleaned it myself...

WHEN SUDDENLY!

A package arrived, with my thoroughly cleaned, good as new airbrush. I will be giving it a test-run tomorrow. I sent a message to Testors, thanking them for their service and asking how the hell they got it this clean, unless there's a secret to cracking it open without voiding the warranty?

I will sleep better this night!