My first airbrush run

Get that paint out of there!

IIRC you're using acrylics. Windex with Ammonia (not that "green" stuff) gets acrylics out pronto and fairly cheaping. Windex is merely a brand name. I use ZEP with Ammonia which is about a third of the price.

Absolutely get the paint out of the siphon tube and off the needle, or you'll end up with a brick.

Use Q-tips to swab out the siphon tube, and after pulling the needle back (but necessarily out) swab out the nozzle end. You want to be absolutely sure to get ALL the paint.

Get good ventilation for your spray booth AND get a regulator. Even if you are using acrylics inhaling dried bits of plastic isn't not good for your lungs. I use a regulator even when I use rattle cans outside. 

A tank certainly helps with the pulsation. How long of a hose are you using? The longer the better. Paasche makes hoses in 10' and 25' lengths.

You can buy another air regulator at places like Harbor Freight or Wal-Mart for as little as $5. That's the kind I use. You'll probably have to figure out some adapters to fit it to the existing one.

Siphon fed brushes hold a lot more paint in the siphon then you would expect. It why I always say gravity fed are easier to clean.

You've got the right cleaning stuff. Rinse with water as Ammonia can stain chrome black. If you have hard water (ever get white spots on stuff?) get some distilled water from the grocery store. A gallon shouldn't cost more then a couple of bucks. You don't want calcium buildup in your airbrush!

For sure you could cobble the two hoses together with a "male-to-male" coupling to lower the pulses.

Lowe's, Home Depot, any decent sized hardware store will stock regulators. They don't have to be expensive. I use a separate moisture trap and neither of them was expensive. Certainly both together weren't $20, even with all the extra bits I needed to screw them together. Combination ones don't have to cost as much as $30!

No worries.

The regulator is nothing more than a tap for the air and can go anywhere you want it to. The moisture trap should be as close to the airbrush as possible. Here's a pic of my setup (mind the messm it's a working spraybooth):

Having it inside the spraybooth makes it very handy to adjust the airflow.

As you can see my moisture trap is mounted to the regulator, and the airhose to the airbrush hooks up to the trap.  I've replaced the thin vinyl hose pictured with a braided line that came with an additional trap about 2' from my airbrush. Better safe than sorry!

scrambler8 wrote:

When I'm done with an airbrush, I pull out the needle and nozzle and clean them completely. The AB's I use are gravity feed, but I'm still amazed at the amount of paint build-up on/in those parts. It really doesn't take that long and it makes sure that the brush won't hit you with any surprises the next time you use it. As stated, siphon tubes are even more prone to paint build-up.

Absolutely good advice! And I covered that recently in a recent thread about cleaning airbrushes.

Make sure you have as much of the paint cleaned out of the airbrush, since once the needle is pulled paint can flow back into the air valve and that is one of the worst things to happen to an airbrush! It helps to have needle lube (glycerin which is available at LHS or drug stores, you might have to ask for it in the drug store) and spread a bit on the front third. Careful!! They call them needles for obvious reasons!