Cleaning brushes and ?s regarding Airbrushing

as far as regular brushes water would be fine.  I use a soap called "pink brush soap" from Hobby Lobby or Michaels I forget, which helps loosen the paint a little better and conditions the bristles while you clean.  Sometimes I am lazy and just use plain water.

As far as airbrushing acrylics, I use windex and spray till clear then about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water to flush the windex out.  It's said the windex can darken the metal so you should flush it with water.  I've never had anything like that happen but why take a chance?  Also water is a lot nicer to a paint job if you still have a speck of it in the chamber when you go to spray on top of a previous coat.  Windex would eat right through uncured paint.

You can use any thinner you want to clean the airbrush or your paint brushes. I prefer to use lacquer thinner because it takes the paint of QUICK! The only time you really need to worry about matching brands is for painting, and even then its not critical, but it will help the paint quality. Its kinda like the weakest link thing, if you use good paint, but a cheap thinner, the paint will only be as good as the cheap thinner? Know what I mean. For cleaning though, use whatever takes the paint off.

BTW, if its an Aztek, I don't think you are supposed to use lacquer thinner in those, so if so you might want to be  careful with that.

IdiotWithAGun wrote:

I use a Passche VLS airbrush, would that affect it any?

No, it shouldn't hurt it. The reason you aren't supposed to use lacquer with Azteks is because the lacquer thinner will attack the plastic. Take a scrap piece of styrene and rub some lacquer thinner on it for a minute and you will see what I mean, it pretty much melts the top and makes a gummy mess!

Enamel thinner and Tamiya acrylic don't mix well.  the acrylic could turn into little globs inside your airbrush.  (not thinking one day I put enamel thinner instead of acrylic thinner into a mixing jar with acrylics.  It wasn't pretty! ) 

Lacquer thinner would work to clean it though, although the fumes of lacquer thinner are rather toxic if breathed into your lungs.  Myself, I save lacquer thinner for lacquer paints and cleaning the airbrush for it's monthly overhaul, when spraying acrylics windex is strong enough to clean between colors and at the end of the night.  For regular brushes soapy water, water or windex would clean the acrylic, but lacquer thinner is capable of cleaning it off too.

With an all metal airbrush nothing should hurt it as far as solvents.  The only thing solvents can hurt on it are the rubber O-rings where the plunger is at the top of the airvalve assembly.  That part of the brush should never be soaked in a solvent unless you first take out the air valve with the O-rings on it.  Typically major maintenance on the airbrush should be done once every couple of weeks, and all that usually needs to be soaked in a solvent, is the head and tip of the brush.  Everything else can be wiped down to remove any dried on paint if needed, but that's about it.