Hello,
Equipment: Iwata HP-CS and an HP-C+, and an Iwata Smart Jet Pro.
Today I returned to the airbrush after a 5 month hiatus. Spraying at about 15psi things started out well, but within a minute or two I was observing slower paint spray. Having been down this road before I knew I'd soon have a surge of paint fly out if I just kept at it.
Cranking up the PSI to max and spraying cleaner through it for a bit got me back in business, but the symptom popped up again in the same very short time frame.
I had thinned Vallejo Game Color (Terracotta) with Vallejo Airbrush thinner at what looked to be roughly a 1:1 ratio (I used a separate clean dropper bottle bottle to first put the paint, the added the thinner then put it on the roberts paint shaker for a few minutes.
Back to the story, Using the dropper bottle I laid out a few drops and noted it was not "milk consistency" which seems to be the reference standard for airbrush paint. I kept thinning/spraying, spraying cleaner, thinning/spraying, spraying cleaner, but every time had the same problem. Only sprayed well for a very short bit.
In the end it was about milk consistency, but on spraying just kind of pushed around on the model like tinted water. I'm guessing this was too thin.
Giving up for the day, and resolving to write this post, I disassembled the brush and cleaned it. There was some dried paint in the nozzle when I used the super tiny brass wire to push through the front of the nozzle.
Any suggestions? I really want to use the airbrush but this constant problem is rather frustrating. A typical day of airbrushing for me involves 5% airbrushing and 95% spraying cleaner and tearing it down to clean it.