How/when to clean my new AB?

jcfay;

Welcome to the world of airbrushing. It's a great journey into new territories, one which inevitably leads to  the cleaning of the airbrush. 

 I have been using a Passhe H single action model for years, actually I have two and I have developed a method for cleaning that works for me. I use mostly enamels, and now and again I'll dabble in acrylics. With enamels I clean the whole brush with laquer thinner. If  I'm going to shoot a couple of different colors in one sitting I'll blow thinner through the brush until it's clear, then move on to the next color and repeat. Once the session is complete I'll break the airbrush down completely and soak the nozzles in laquer thinner for a couple of minutes, then I 'll use micro brushes to thoroughly clean the tips and nozzles( you can find them in the dental isle of your local drug store or at an arts and crafts store): I used pipe cleaners but I found they leave small threads of the material behind. I also use q tips to clean the out side areas as well. I'll use basically the same technique with acrylics except I'll use windshield washing fluid, water and sometimes rubbing alcohol. Don't for get to clean your bottles, the syphone tubes and other parts as well. A clean airbrush as you will discover or already have, is a definite must. You've already done some experimenting and that's what ultimately will dictate what works for you, get a routing you like and stick to it.

 I also HIGHLY recommend investing in a good respirator, excellent ventilation and keep the kids if you have any, or pets away especially when dealing with laquer and any turpintine/mineral spirits type products and actually any medium of painting you use. One more thing I use are rubber surgical gloves they help keep the paint and cleaning materials off my hands and the keep finger prints off the model. I again found them in the pharmacy/drug type stuff isle in my local Mal Mart store.

  I hope these tips help you and I'm sure others will chime in with their techniques as well. Have fun with your new toy!!

 

Neil

Well you already have the nut and bolts of it.. but something I thought I should throw in as an almost exclusive acrylic user, keep a Q-tip soaked in thinner handy nearby, when you start to have problems with the spray pattern or it just doesnt wanna spray just pull the needle back (without pushing the trigger) and wipe the tip..

I dont break mine down to the point of soaking the tip in lacquer thinner until about 15 hours of use or I notice a problem.  Otherwise I just shoot thinner through it and pull out the needle at the end of the night and clean it..

 

Good luck!  I have the sister brush to the 360, the 155 and I had some good experiences with it!!!

If you are going to spray for 5 minutes, then yeah the cleaning is going to take longer than the painting session.  If, however, you paint for a couple of hours it still only takes about 10 minutes to clean the brush.  Adjust your painting so that you paint several parts that are the same color at the same time and you'll save a lot of cleaning time.

You DON'T have to completely disassemble the airbrush every time you use it.  When you get through blow thinner through until it comes clean.  I've gotten to the point that I use laquer thinner for cleaning my brush when I finish because it will completely dissolve any kind of modeling paint.  Between colors I use something less evil.  Every couple of weeks, or when the brush starts to feel "Sticky" or the spray pattern will become erratic, disassemble it, remove the air valve, and soak the parts in laquer thinner for a couple of hours. Don't soak the air valve in laquer thinner or you can harm the o-ring in it.

MusicCity wrote:

You DON'T have to completely disassemble the airbrush every time you use it.  When you get through blow thinner through until it comes clean.  I've gotten to the point that I use laquer thinner for cleaning my brush when I finish because it will completely dissolve any kind of modeling paint.  Between colors I use something less evil.  Every couple of weeks, or when the brush starts to feel "Sticky" or the spray pattern will become erratic, disassemble it, remove the air valve, and soak the parts in laquer thinner for a couple of hours. Don't soak the air valve in laquer thinner or you can harm the o-ring in it.

Can the washers (100SG) be damaged from soaking in lacquer thinner?  I thought they were silicon but not sure about it has so far stopped me from soaking the entire brush less the air valve in lacquer thinner.

The Badger 100/150/old stlyle 200 series use a teflon head seal for the head assembly. This is different from the seal in the air valve assembly and not to be confused with the needle seal in the body. The only problem with the teflon head seal is that it is easy to drop it when removing the head assembly for breakdown and/or cleaning. Be careful not to loose it or simply keep several on hand as spares.

 

E

H3nav wrote:

The Badger 100/150/old stlyle 200 series use a teflon head seal for the head assembly. This is different from the seal in the air valve assembly and not to be confused with the needle seal in the body.

The needle bearing is also PTFE (Teflon)

Hey Mike! Yeah, that's what I meant in an implied way.

 

E

H3nav wrote:

Hey Mike! Yeah, that's what I meant in an implied way.   E

Ok. My bad!

I couldn't work out why my Iwata HP-C stopped working as should be. As all the chaps at my LHS use the Badger 200-9 (also called the 200G) or 200-10 (a single action gravity fed, small cup, either fine (9) or medium (10) nozzle), I decided to get one too from Shesto's (the UK importer - great customer service).

After a while, like with my Iwata, I stripped it down, use lacquer thinner, etc. Since then, it's not worked. Seems that I damaged the seals on it. Basically, I'm using this as a note of caution to others!

Until I can get it fixed, I'm using an Ohmicron cheap AB from ebay, which is fine. I tried an Aztec, but like my previous 2, after a while it just cloggs up, and can't be cleaned.

interestingly... someone on here posted about the first airbrush made etc today and there is a link to a 1891 airbrushing magazine made by the manufacturer.  in it is a section on "Abuse of the Air Brush" which covers a lot of what has been said in here about total disassembly.

It's on the right side of the page and I believe continued on the next page...

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Trailer/8722/journalpage3.html