To clean or not to clean...

Not that I really know what I'm talking about, so take my response with a grain of salt.

Mostly from what I've read...

Oil/enamel paints take awhile to dry, so just running thinner/cleaner through the AB between color changes are fine.

Acrylics dry quickly and can plug up your AB. Taking it apart once and awhile and giving it a thorough cleaning is a good idea. Especially if you're spraying for an extended period of time.

Like I said, I've read that in a few AB'ing books.

20 years ago when I was doing some occasional AB'ing on auto's, just running thinner through it was fine when spraying enamels. I would take it apart and clean it after about an hour (or a few color changes) when I was spraying lacquer as that paint would tend to "skin" over and start to plug-up the AB.

On Fridays I'd totally strip down and give a thorough cleaning to all my spray guns, they only received cleaner through them during the week no matter what I was spraying.

I'm with you jhande. I use acrylics almost exclusively and I rarely break down the airbrush. I always use a retarder in my acrylics and it slows down the drying process (hence preventing tip dry and allowing the paint to "settle" before drying), and it allows me to blow thinner through my airbrush to thoroughly clean it. My 2 cents.

Rich

Ok, thanks guys. I guess I can chill out on breaking this thing down. Its quick and easy, since I am used to breaking down big spray guns, but it is still a pain when I would rather just spray out the cup and go. Thanks again.

yup... just run thinner through till no more color comes out.  With the acrylic tip dry issue just keep a Qtip moistened with thinner to your side and occasionally pull back the needle (don't push the trigger down!! ) and wipe the head clean.  I don't do a breakdown until I am done spraying...

No, don't take it apart, do as the others have said.
I also recommend you back flush it also as you don't want the old color surprising you and coming out when you are using a different color.
Always paint from light to dark also for this reason.

For me it works fine with just running it through with a bit of thinner between each paint change.

But as mentioned above, be sure to paint light > dark colors to be sure that you get no stains or whatever from the previously used paint.

When I was a beginner at airbrushing (I still am, kind of...), I used to take it apart after each paint change, but I quickly realized that was just a waste of time, now I only take it apart once I'm finished painting.

I guess I am just worring about it to much. I just look at all the dirty thinner that comes out and look at how much paint is on the pipe cleaners I use and think, wow, that has to mix in with the other paint?