New guy need airbrushing help

J

Jose Chung

Guest
Hi folks. I'm an "old fart" and have been modeling most of my life. I prefer armor, mostly WWII German armor, but also a occasional aircraft.

I recently purchased a Paasche Vision airbrush and was excited to get started. Normally I used acrylics but picked up a bottle of enamel by mistake. Thinking it was acrylic I thinned it with acrylic thinner and went to work. By the time I realized my mistake the air brush was completely clogged. I've spent hours cleaning it using mineral spirits. I finally get airflow through it but when I replace the air cap the air flow stops. Loosen the air cap and the air flows but no fluid (paint, cleaner, etc) flows through.

Any and all help appreciated.
 
Hi Jose, welcome from New Zealand. Sounds like there is still a blockage. Do you have any of the enamel reducer? Try soaking the front bits in it overnight. Not sure if there are any rubber seals at that end, if there are, don't soak the rubber seals. Do you have a jewelers loupe? They are cheap and good for checking for blockages.
 
Nozzles can be hard to clean at the best of times, and the wrong paint makes it even harder. Soak in an enamel thinner as mark says, and very very gently with your needle (you don't want to flare the nozzle) tease out anything that is left in there if necessary.

If your usual acrylics aren't airbrush specific, they will give issues too. You need specific airbrush paint as the pigment is much finer :)
 
Hello and welcome ,we have all had a blockage from various paints . Like everyone has said soak the nozzle etc and all will be fine upon re assembly ,fingers crossed .
 
you might want to get some dental brushs ( used to clean between teeth) as they work well for cleaning the nozzle and packing area,also check for paint in the air holes on the nozzle
 
Hi Jose, welcome to the forum, Yep get the correct thinners for the enamel and give the nozzle a soak, you could try to spray it through the airbrush when you think its clean.

I have done this with 2k thinners when i left acrylic paint in the airbrush for a few hours. Let us know how you get on.

Lee
 
Welcome from Canada, the Paasche vision is very finicky, if the air cap is too tight no air can pass around the tip to generate the venturi effect (what pulls the paint out) , and if it is not tight enough, the air will go back up in the tip and make bubbles in the cup. If you check closely, you should see the tip come out a little bit from the air cap. You need to play around with the tightness to find the sweet spot. Hope that helps a bit :)
 
you might want to get some dental brushs ( used to clean between teeth) as they work well for cleaning the nozzle and packing area,also check for paint in the air holes on the nozzle
And here I thought that was my little secret! Lol.

Another good general tip for cleaning nozzles is using round toothpicks. Just whittle them down enough so that the tip of the toothpick sticks just barely out of the nozzle tip. Whittle down a few, and soak them in the cleaner (in this case the thinner) until the they soften up a bit. (You can also soak then whittle, which I do with water based paints).
They're just rough enough to get a good clean, but too soft to mar the metal or, unless you've been eating your spinach a lot, warp the tip.
I haven't had any break off it the nozzle, either, which is surprising, so I'm knocking on wood, but as long as you're only applying reasonable pressure, some careful needle work should pull it out easy enough.
 
Back
Top