Protecting you needle: IQ of 70 required

EBergerud

unless I've got a mutant or am losing my eyesight, the needle in the Evo has no marks on it to designate size

Unless you have the 0.4 or 0.6mm needles, you're not going mutant or blind - the 0.15 & 0.2mm are not marked, the 0.4 has a single marking at the rear & the 0.6 has a double marking.

If you do have the 0.4 or 0.6, it's time for a mutant test & eye check!

Maybe it's because I favor pretty thin paint, but I've never pulled out a needle after a full session of spraying and found it clean. If a paint covers very well that means either it has very high pigment load, coarse pigment or both: I clean needle and nozzle after a color spray then. I know a lot of good modelers spray cleaner or water through and when it's clean call it a day and clean the brush once a week or so. I also realize it's possible that if you clean too much you could actually move ugly stuff into the nozzle. That said, at least my airbrush works best when nice and tidy.

Eric

First of all you don't need to remove the needle every time you are done painting.

Secondly, it doesn't matter which direction you pull the needle out as the needle bearing keeps paint from getting into the airbrush body. Some airbrushes like the Badger Anthem 155, 360 and the Sotar 20/20 HAVE to come out through the back of the airbrush. If you are worried about damaging the tip of the needle then put on your magnifiers and insert the needle into the airbrush wearing those to see up close and watch the tip.

Just got an answer, sort of, from Chicago Airbrush. The tech there says he takes the thing out and puts it in from the rear out of habit. He also things doing from the front is a good idea with the Evo because its needle is so delicate.

This could be a matter of having a fine hand and good concentration. If you watch it, you can insert an Evo needle in with no harm. I fall asleep at the switch pretty easy, especially if I'm thinking about the actual painting or the fate of the universe. So I know I nick the thing sometimes on reinsertion. Even small nicks will degrade the needle and the nozzle. I can testify to that. (Badgers are known for ruggedness: a major review on the Krome warned of doing any damage to their .15 needle - maybe you can't make a rugged .15 or .2 needle.) For kicks I looked at all my brushes. The Paasche needles are thicker and look pretty good, although the nozzle for the Talon is starting to split. I think the VLS would spray if I ran over it with a car.

Eric

I've always pulled it out from the back, and re-ineserted it from the back after wiping it clean, with several different airbrushes, and never had any problems.

I have a Badger 150 and thats how i insert and remove my needles. But i don't put the needle or head on after cleaning. I put the needle back in its case. I have both the fine and medium tips and needles, and though i mostly use the medium, i don't see the point of putting a needle in when i might need to remove it the next time i use my brush.

Phil Flory the very sharp guy who runs Flory Models has different advice. He says remove the needle from the front and insert it from the rear. The logic is that it's a bad idea to drag a needle over the deepest innards of the brush while it could be carrying gunk. I hesitate to disagree with him because his advice is almost always right. But I'd guess that this would be a factor when pulling out a dirty needle from the rear (which is why Flory says pull it out from the front) but not much of a factor if you're inserting a clean one from the front. (Most videos on YouTube show insertion and reinsertion from the rear.) But I do know that it's very easy to nick a fine HS needle and that even slight damage to the needle will degrade the nozzle which in turn degrades the airbrush. But this can happen so slowly you hardly notice - until you buy new ones and remember how the HS is supposed to work. And that's expensive. 

Anyway, I'm forwarding this question to Chicago Airbrush. Harder and Steenbeck is getting popular in the US, but for a long time they were one of the few places to carry the whole line. (The HS manual is very helpful: it says "carefully remove needle.") 

Flory does urge his flock to drain their compressors. I've never done that even though there's a sign on my Senco advising users to drain it every day. Sure enough, out comes a nice little puddle of rusty water. That would be great stuff to get in your nozzle - bet it's good for the tank too.

Eric

How about taking it out from the rear and reinserting from the front? Then at least a clean needle would go in. And unless I've got a mutant or am losing my eyesight, the needle in the Evo has no marks on it to designate size. The Paasche does, but there's nothing on the Evo.

Eric

Phil_H

Milairjunkie:

Doing this can apparently accelerate the wear on the needle seal slightly,

That's open to opinion I think - consider that if you draw a needle out through the back of the brush, any dried paint, particularly if you use flats, will act as an abrasive on the bore of the needle seal and perhaps accellerate wear.

Half-full or half-empty, it depends on who you ask....

Personally I don't buy it & have been removing / replacing my needles from the front since the day I got my Infinity (Identical seal arrangement as the Evo.). The needle identification notches are supposed to be the culprit & doing everything from the rear prevents these passing through the seal - but these are quite smooth & if they do cause an issue I really don't think that it's significant enough to be concerned about. 

Milairjunkie

Doing this can apparently accelerate the wear on the needle seal slightly,

That's open to opinion I think - consider that if you draw a needle out through the back of the brush, any dried paint, particularly if you use flats, will act as an abrasive on the bore of the needle seal and perhaps accellerate wear.

Half-full or half-empty, it depends on who you ask....

This is almost a must for the 0.15 & 0.2mm needles as it's very easy to catch the needle tip on the chuck nut "guide" - it's certainly instant death for the 0.15mm needle.

Doing this can apparently accelerate the wear on the needle seal slightly, but the seals are readily available, cheap & easy to replace.