Future (Klear) and pigment suspension?

Airbrush performance is a lot of trial and error. Make a log of adjustments and make only one at a time as to scientifically note the results.

Others agree that the manufactures thinner is best for airbrushing and the bulk variety is better for cleaning.

Also it has been brought up some batches of paint and just plain duds. If all else fails try a different jar or manufacture for certain colors.

I am a 'rattle can' modeler yet have sprayed a few 1/1 scale vehicles so the basic principles apply.

Good luck as it too can be a factor!

Jason

Flow-aid tends to help some with clogging, but in my experience it doesn't do much to increase drying time and therefor tip dry.  You need a retarder for that.  Liquitex makes a retarder, but at that point you're putting several drops of different stuff in your paint every time you fill the cup, and that gets to be a pain (drop of flow-aid water, drop of retarder, drop of future for the acrylic resins, etc.)  I want to paint, not be a chemist.  Unfortunately that seems to be a requirement these days.

Liquitex airbrush medium contains all three: flow-aid, retarder, and clear acrylic carrier to help with suspension and adhesion.  After trying it I've not used the straight flow-aid or retarder.  I haven't tried thinning with future yet, as the medium works so well, but it would definitely be cheaper. 

I don't personally see the point in using lacquer thinner or any other smelly stuff.  If I'm going to fire up the fans, open the window, don the darth vader mask, etc., then I'm going to paint with lacquer.  No problems with tip dry, pebbling, clogging, pigment settling, etc... just a beautiful finish.  For me, the only reason to continue to try and perfect acrylic finishing and all the chemistry experimentation that goes with it is that I can fire up the airbrush and paint away without hearing the Earth (or my wife) scream.  ;-)   

EBergerud

I did something really dumb - not sure what - and really clogged my Harder Steenbeck airbrush. Took the whole thing, with the tip seperate, and put in my ultrasonic cleaner with some cut lacquer thinner. Two three minute cycles and it was clean as a whistle. 

Just a head's up that dunking the main body of the airbrush in an ultrasonic cleaner can have some really bad consequences. 

A few weeks back I did something similar trying to get some tough crud out of the bottom of my Iwata HP-C Plus' color cup. Disassembled it and submerged everything from the color cup forward in the ultrasonic cleaner. Came back to find that, with the needle removed, it had kicked an acrylic/enamel slurry back up the needle channel and into the trigger mechanism area. 

This is actually why I bought the Eclipse HP-CS. I've got the HP-C+ functional again, but there's still something awry with the trigger mechanism, and when I release it it seems to hang before gradually shutting off the airflow. Pretty sure there's paint clogged down there, and I need to send it in to let Iwata clean it up good, but I also need it for some detail work, so I've been hesitating. 

Anyway, yeah, be careful putting a disassembled airbrush body into the ultrasonic...

Wonder what you had in there. I took out the needle and all of the paint build-up simply went into the solvent and the thing came out clean as a whistle. It might be bad for rings, but they're cheap and I have a packet of spares. (Supposedly a good airbrush shouldn't be a problem in that regard, but who knows.) At bare minimum, the ultrasonic is tops for cleaning out the nozzel, tip and needle. I've found that it's hard to find the right device to clean a nozzle with. Thin metal devices will clear a whole but not necessarily really get at the stuff that is clinging to the sides. A tooth pick or even a medical cotton swab can leave a little bit of itself behind - I've had clogging from cleaning. Should try a dental tool maybe.

It has passed my mind that enamel paints might actually clean better than acrylics. You sure wouldn't have the stuff drying on your tip after two minutes. Of course I've sunk maybe $200 into acrylics.

Eric