I give up!!! Tip dry issues and paint turns to mousse!!

T

Talla

Guest
Well thats it ... I give up!

Been trying to do some fine detail on my latest project an im just getting tip dry, tip dry, TIP DRY! Im putting more paint onto my piece of scrap paper than I am getting on the artwork just trying to blow the nozzle clean. As soon as I get it sparaying and go to the art work it drys up again. I have reduced the paint to no avail (other than spiders everywhere). I am currently trying to usesome Wicked detail dark umber with 4011 reducer and getting down to reductions of 4:1 reducer to paint and running this through both my Infinity 0.15 and my Veda WD180 0.2 needle. If I up the pressure it just spiders if I lower the pressure it just stops.

To top it all my paint mysteriously turned to mousse in the cup of the infinity (Got some contamination thing going on here Im sure!). I had soaked the Infinity and the Veda in restorer and then cleaned out with water making sure the nozzles werent blocked. I have been trying for days to do this detail and have had to restart many times because of issues and now im at my wits end!

Im giving up! ..... Gonna do some biking instead! (Until I get back from the Classic Bike show in Stafford on Sunday and then Im gonna break out the Uros and see if they are any better!). :moody:
 
try a make up brush to clean the tip,most probably there is tiny spot between the needle and the tip where the paints is blocked and in that way create an obstruction for the fluid.or place in a glass of water just the point of the airbrush and pull all the way back to clean it,to create bubbles.

hope this works for you.
 
Ummm... Maybe try the new new 4012 reducer. I have some and it seems to be world better than the 4011.

Doing Ricks eagle I was shooting at well over a 4:1 reduction using Createx Illustration . Maybe something like 10:1 would help get by for now.
 
First off lose the 40whatever and just get W500 It will work with all Createx products. Oh for the record the 4012 and W500 are the same but one cost less....hint hint..
Next you are not even close to being thin enough . I run at least 6 to 1 through the .2 of the Krome. 10 to 1 through the .18 micron with wicked. Otherwise it is headache city..
 
Thanks for the advice guys!

Will try and resource some new reducer ... will look for some W500 as nobody seems to be stocking the 4012 in the UK yet.
as for cleaning ... My problems seem to have started when I got some autoair "restorer". I am convinced, and the proof is in the bottom of my bottle, that the restorer does not disolve the old paint but softens it. this was born out by the amount of excremente i managed to get out of the nozzle of my Infinity. 30 mins of poking my needle in and out of the nozzle and sludge was still coming out of the end. Minute amounts but it was still there. As much as I worry about the rubber seals I am of the mind to try a stronger solvent.I want to see the paint disolve totally and not just break up into smaller sludgy bits that all inevitably end up in the nozzle.

Herb, the more I reduced the worse the spidering on the artwork (this was not really apparent on my scrap paper so I assume that the artwork is now waterproof and not absorbing the paint anymore. I even reduced the air pressure right down to 15psi and then further reduced it with my inline mac valve until the paint refused to come out. Got to the stage of spider ...turn valve a smidgen... no paint ... back a smidgen... spider!

In the meantime I have ordered a new needle and nozzle for the infinity just in case anything is damaged.

Anyway ... having a weekend away on the harley this week so I will return to this problem next week :victorious:
 
Talla buddy, micron is spot on. Your know where close to being thin enough. Go 10 to 1 or more with y our infinity, especially the infinity with the .15 set up. Your pressure needs to be extremely low as well. The spidering is the cause of a few things. Its from to high of pressure and thin paint, but the cause of the spidering is because you probably are doing what i use to do, which is trying to put down to much color in one pass and being to slow with the movement and being to close to the surface. It should take 5 passes or more to get the full intensity of color. Hope this makes sense, lol!! And dont worry, we all have been there. You will get it!!

Josh
Yesterday is history and tomorrow is a mystery. Treat today as a gift, because that's why they call it "THE PRESENT!"
 
I have to agree with monkey on the going to slow , Been there and sometimes I am still there..
 
Josh, I kept on reducing the paint to no avail it would still block up/tip dry all the time and had the pressure down to at least 5 psi. there is definitely something amiss as I had the infinity working well a few weeks ago. Yet an identical set of parameters ie paint reduction and pressure did not bring identical results.

I am not sure if I have a thing going on with the paint especially after it turned to chocolate mousse in my cup. I am wondering if I forgot to rinse out the airbrush after I had cleaned it with restorer. I had some bubbles coming back into the cup and just wasn't getting anywhere so I went to get my Veda and when I tried to pour the paint into the Veda cup it wouldn't come out of the infinity ... it had set like chocolate mousse in minutes.

Anyway ... as I said this will have to wait now as the bike is taking over from airbrushing for today and the weekend!
 
Cellulose thinners and a size 000 paint brush worked well for cleaning the build up on the inside of my nozzle 0.15.
I now only use com art paint, and if I need to spray white or black I use my 0.2 nozzle brush.
I thin the paint with distilled water( A drop of washing up liquid in about 4 ounces of water is meant to help break the surface tension. I haven't got around to trying that yet), for fine detail 5 to 1, larger areas just 2 drops. Flush the paint cup out with water between colour changes, and when not in use I leave the paint cup full of water.
I very rarely get tip dry anymore, and only need to remove the needle and give it a wipe at the start of each new painting session.
air pressure varies depending what i'm painting on.
I hope the sun shines for your Harley trip. :bee:
 
Ya nice to hear I am on the right track with my new Krome. It takes a lot of experimentation and trial with reduction and psi. I was having trouble with lousy splattered detail on fine work, so for fun I dumped the cup and added straight water to the mix (golden acrylics) started painting fine lines with a very weak mixture, and the detail was very clean and fine, so with fine .2 spraying and many passes as Monkey says works the best. Obviously next time round I added more paint and lots of reducer. Lots of tinkering....
 
Hmmmm the chocolate mousse thing Is a mystery for sure.....but like micron and monkey said reduction reduction reduction....through my velocity (0.21 setup) I reduce wicked /wkd detail 1:15 plus.....and then reduce my pressure to 5-8 psi.....also fine trigger control is a big thing in stopping spidering.....turn the tension right back so its dead smooth, lengthen your trigger, then you just need to touch the trigger for a little paint, no risk of puling back way to far.....how good quality is your mac valve....I havnt got one yet but I would suggest for a trial, taking it off and just getting a true reading of pressure from your comp?
 
Paint should not bubble up. Something else is in there. Once I wrote that denatured alcohol removed all contaminants from my airbrush and left it sqeaky clean. That will remove all old paint and junk from your AB with out harming it and then it evaporates. And then remember to practices your lines on the same type of material you are painting on. I have a waste canvas for when I paint on canvas. Your PSI and paint mix on PAPER will spider on canvas or metal. I wrote a tip on that not to long ago. When I work on paper, I have a scrap piece of paper to test the AB. I am going to try CLAYBOARD next time and I will have a scrap piece of clayboard to test my AB PSI and paint mixture. Sounds more expensive but I get less headaches and reduces the amount of cursing.
 
Well just got back from my little road trip on my sporty. I'm now as deaf as a post and have vibration white finger but it was well worth it! On the way back home we avoided all Motorways and ended up following the Spine of England (the Pennines).Started off in the Derbyshire Dales up through the Yorkshire dales and turned eastwards at Whafedale to head home. Hell of a convoluted route but brilliant riding ... took in Snake Pass and others on the way back (Love twisties!).
Havent even got my leathers off yet but had to get back on the forum to see what I missed.

Anyway ...Thanks for all the help and advice guys its really appreciated!
I will go back to the drawing board after giving my gear a good clean out in the ultra sonic bath! Plus my new needle and tip for the infinity has turned up while I have been away so I may just fit that and see if I have better results.

I'm back down London with work tomorrow so everything will have to wait till next weekend.

Thanks again Lowrider, Fezley, Josh, Jacksparrow, Danair and Herb for all the invaluable help.:encouragement:
 
Hmmmm the chocolate mousse thing Is a mystery for sure.....

Had the same problem, i think you have a very small crack in you nozzel(like mine), with the 4011/4010 the paint dries fast and in your nozzel ( at leased it did in my set up).

I went for illustration colors and a new nozzel and my problems are gone
Curious for the new reducer
 
Had the same problem, i think you have a very small crack in you nozzel(like mine), with the 4011/4010 the paint dries fast and in your nozzel ( at leased it did in my set up).

I went for illustration colors and a new nozzel and my problems are gone
Curious for the new reducer

My thoughts as well ... Hence ordering a new needle and nozzle. If its not the problem then I have spares! :chuncky:
 
First off lose the 40whatever and just get W500 It will work with all Createx products. Oh for the record the 4012 and W500 are the same but one cost less....hint hint..
Next you are not even close to being thin enough . I run at least 6 to 1 through the .2 of the Krome. 10 to 1 through the .18 micron with wicked. Otherwise it is headache city..

Everything airbrush said they are in discussion with distributors about getting the W500 into the uk, so hopefully it should be available here soon. As far as I know no one else has it yet either.

Hope the mousse situation is getting solved, def sounds like air getting back into the cup somehow.
 
Everything airbrush said they are in discussion with distributors about getting the W500 into the uk, so hopefully it should be available here soon. As far as I know no one else has it yet either.

Hope the mousse situation is getting solved, def sounds like air getting back into the cup somehow.

There was air getting back in the cup ... But I think the big no no was not rinsing the gun thoroughly after soaking it in createx air brush restorer! I havent had the mousse problem since ultrasonically cleaning my Infinity (It hasnt improved my airbrushing abilities but one less frustration!).

Moral of the story... If using cleaning agents then rines your gun out/off and then rinse it again and again! :sour:
 
There was air getting back in the cup ... But I think the big no no was not rinsing the gun thoroughly after soaking it in createx air brush restorer! I havent had the mousse problem since ultrasonically cleaning my Infinity (It hasnt improved my airbrushing abilities but one less frustration!).

Moral of the story... If using cleaning agents then rines your gun out/off and then rinse it again and again! :sour:
Glad you got that sorted Talla! By the way SMDesigns are stocking the W500/4012 reducer now, and even though they are in Ireland they ship really quickly.
 
I've had the same kind of problems. One thing I did wrong was to use the wrong nozzle-cap.
I barely use my Infinity because of all the problems I've had.

One thing I've noticed is that the air pressure coming out of the airbrush is way lower than my Iwata. Even when I use the same pressure and about the same nozzle-size.
This is really frustrating.

And yeah, you probably have a crack in your nozzle. I had it and the airbrush was acting really strange.
 
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try looking up those 2
- paint dry retardant
- "hyper hydrophobic" (this one you didn't hear it from me :friendly_wink:)

might want to reduce pressure and augment the reducer aswell ...
 
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