Cleaning airbrush and brushes

Aaacckkk! Thipthpt! Bleaughh!! (Insert picture of Calvin spitting out dinner.)

Your poor airbrush!

Acrylics are thinned with either their own thinner, water, or alcohol. (For Tamiya, use either the Tamiya thinner or 90 percent isopropyl alcohol.) They are cleaned with either soap and water, Simple Green, Windex (the Windex with ammonia in it), or a small amount of ammonia in water. Rinse thoroughly after cleaning. Personally, I prefer Windex or Simple Green.

Now that you've used mineral spirits on an acrylic, it may be very difficult to remove. If soaking for a few hours in Windex or Simple Green does not work, then (and only then) try soaking in either a caustic cleaner WEAR RUBBER GLOVES AND EYE PROTECTION (Super Clean, which is basically lye with a surfactant) or lacquer thinner. If you have access to a small ultrasonic cleaner, using a solution of either Windex or Simple Green in it is good for small parts.

Windex works great as it's mostly isopropyl alcohol with a smattering of ammonia. I clean my AB by spraying it into an old windshield washer jug. I cut an "X" shape about 3/4" long and about halfway up the jug, which acts as a "gate" for the AB tip to enter the jug. I remove the lid while cleaning to let out the excess air pressure. I recycle the Windex by decanting it after the paint has settled out. After the initial cleaning with the recycled Windex, I then flush (and back flush) the AB with fresh Windex, and then spray some isopropyl to remove any remaining ammonia (which can stain the metal of the AB BTW), and then distilled water to flush out any alcohol.

Any paint that manages to get on my hands (and there is always some that does) gets washed away with nothing more than good old soap and water.

Bill, that's a great tip about the cleaning jug! My homebuilt booth has a vent in it for spraying cleaning solvent directly outside (doubles as an auxilliary vent for a benchtop fume fan) but with the price of solvents going ballistic (Thank you, Exxon-Mobile, BP, and all the other oil pirates!) recycling all the cleaning solvent sounds like an excellent idea.

I apologize for worse than usual spelling and typos. I've severed a tendon in my left index finger, and typing is a little awkward for the moment!

Thinning Tamiya Acrylics is SUPER simple: thin with 91% alcohol from the drugstore. (Ive been with MM Enamels since they first came out and now after all these years, and fighting with other acrylics, I find Tamiya by far the easiest to deal with).

I clean up the stuff in this order: Blow the rest of the paint out ( I dont mix much at a time to begin with, gravity feed Iwata) , run water through for a few seconds, then take a cheap big brush and wash out the cup with sudsy ammonia.  Then flush ammonia through it for a few seconds.  

Works every time been doing it this way for about twoyears now.   I used some MM Acryl and the damned stuff turned rock hard in the airbrush and I spent the rest of the day chiseling that nastystuff out (thiined with thier own thinner) 

Dont forget to use a airbrush lube like MediaLube, run a drop through the cup and blow it out, it works great next time when you are ready to go and there is no stickyness in the airbrush at all.

 David