How to clean acrylic from airbrush?

Teenage Modeler

 

 

Tojo72

Alcohol is fine except if you are spraying Vallejo paints,that combo will jam your airbrush up.

Try to avoid using Model Company thinners for cleaning,too expensive.Hardware store Lacquer thinner cleans Tamiya and most everything,just smelly.

Deep cleaning requires disassembly,what kind of AB do you have.

 

 

 

 

 

I have a side feed. I didn't buy a gravity feed one. 

 

Others above have described their deep cleaning process

Tojo72

Alcohol is fine except if you are spraying Vallejo paints,that combo will jam your airbrush up.

Try to avoid using Model Company thinners for cleaning,too expensive.Hardware store Lacquer thinner cleans Tamiya and most everything,just smelly.

Deep cleaning requires disassembly,what kind of AB do you have.

 

I have a side feed. I didn't buy a gravity feed one. 

It is important to not delay cleaning too long.  Acrylics dry fast and if you wait too long it is harder to clean out the hardened stuff.

With my Paasche H, I just drop the color cup, needle, and needle cap into an old relish jar with MEK in it and run the jar in an ultrasonic cleaner.  That cleans any type of paint out of it.  I normally run that for about 30 minutes, but I have 3 matching color cup/needle/needle cap sets, so I can immediately get back to painting while one is being cleaned if I want to.

My method is to wipe out the cup (gravity feed airbrush), and spray Velejo airbrush cleaner through the brush until it comes out clean. Then strip the brush down and clean with isopropyl alcohol using paper towel (needle & bowl), Q-tips (various places), pipe cleaner (hole from bowl through front of aitbrush), and GUM Proxabrush (nozzle). Then I place them in an ultrasonic cleaner full of distilled water for 16 minutes (two 8 minute cycles) to knock out any remaining dried paint. Reassemble, wipe dry, and spray water out of brush.

Teenage Modeler

Also, and info on how to deep clean your airbrush?

 

Alcohol is fine except if you are spraying Vallejo paints,that combo will jam your airbrush up.

Try to avoid using Model Company thinners for cleaning,too expensive.Hardware store Lacquer thinner cleans Tamiya and most everything,just smelly.

Deep cleaning requires disassembly,what kind of AB do you have.