Iwata Medea Airbrush cleaner

[AndreZA]

About 6 months ago I started using Medea airbrush cleaner and it works great with acrylic paints. So one day I decided to give the loose parts in the Eclipse a soak because I've never given it a proper clean. The next day I saw the brass parts were half black. I did not think of taking a photo as I was in a panic. I managed to clean it up with a bit of kitchen cleaner cream (Handy Andy here in south Africa). It took about 5 minutes and all was bright and sparkling again. Oh, on the bottle they say "Soak for 2 hours" not overnight.


So the past weekend I decided to document the exercise using my 3000 year old Badger 150. This is the results. It does no affect performance at all and I'me actually going to keep it this colour as it is not just black, but a bit of psychedelic rainbow affect.


Does anybody know why this is happening?

 

[Madbrush]

About 6 months ago I started using Medea airbrush cleaner and it works great with acrylic paints. So one day I decided to give the loose parts in the Eclipse a soak because I've never given it a proper clean. The next day I saw the brass parts were half black. I did not think of taking a photo as I was in a panic. I managed to clean it up with a bit of kitchen cleaner cream (Handy Andy here in south Africa). It took about 5 minutes and all was bright and sparkling again. Oh, on the bottle they say "Soak for 2 hours" not overnight.


So the past weekend I decided to document the exercise using my 3000 year old Badger 150. This is the results. It does no affect performance at all and I'me actually going to keep it this colour as it is not just black, but a bit of psychedelic rainbow affect.


Does anybody know why this is happening?

View attachment 6387

Brass by nature contains certain minerals and natural salts in it's make up, one of these salts is an alkyd salt which you have also seen on other surfaces such as brickwork and concrete, when you do see it it forms a white powdery substance, fluffy in appearance and of you tasted it, it is like licking licking a fully loaded battery.

The cleaners you have used contain certain chemicals which when introduced to the brass activate the these natural salts and the result is "Premature ageing" of the brass, this phenomenon is used to effect nowadays to age the brass parts of modern furniture and such to create period pieces.

If you would like to avoid this problem in the future, you can do this by throwing in a piece of metal which is weaker in substance, since brass is a mixture of copper and nickel, the weaker metal is copper, by placing a small piece of copper into your fluid when soaking your parts, corrosion or semi-corrosion as is the case here, is an electro-chemical reaction between 2 or more natural elements and can sometimes be avoided by introducing a third element, this the case with "Galvanising" coating iron or steel with zinc to stop rusting.

As an experiment, if you hold any of these parts between your fingers for a prolonged time, your finger prints will be permanently embedded onto the part.

Hope this answers your question.

 

[AndreZA]

Dankie Madbrush.

I have seen the fingerprint thing you are talking about. This does not weaken the parts does it?

 

[Madbrush]

Dankie Madbrush.

I have seen the fingerprint thing you are talking about. This does not weaken the parts does it?

No it doesn't weaken the parts, although the outer skin is somewhat softer (not enough to be able to feel it) the rest of the metal behind has extra protection, much the same as the green stuff that forms on copper roofs, this actually protects it from further erosion, it just simply gets uglier but all your parts will continue to perform unaffected, although a little extra lubrication would do no harm.

I actually have finger prints all over the chrome on my evolution, which I had after just minutes of use, even the sweat form your hands can have an adverse effect on different metals and surfaces, but the chrome on my evolution is so poorly done that even a little cleaner immediately tarnishes it.

 

[AndreZA]

No it doesn't weaken the parts, although the outer skin is somewhat softer (not enough to be able to feel it) the rest of the metal behind has extra protection, much the same as the green stuff that forms on copper roofs, this actually protects it from further erosion, it just simply gets uglier but all your parts will continue to perform unaffected, although a little extra lubrication would do no harm.

I actually have finger prints all over the chrome on my evolution, which I had after just minutes of use, even the sweat form your hands can have an adverse effect on different metals and surfaces, but the chrome on my evolution is so poorly done that even a little cleaner immediately tarnishes it.

I actually saw this on my Badger Patriot (not Krome). After just a few hours, the spots where the gun rests on my middle finger and hand were a bit duller and off-colour. I polished it away but it appeared again after another few hours use.

 

[Madbrush]

I actually saw this on my Badger Krome. After just a few hours, the spots where the gun rests on my middle finger and hand were a bit duller and off-colour. I polished it away but it appeared again after another few hours use.

Indeed, once you have it it will never go away, you can lighten it a little but it comes back with a vengeance, the only way to get rid of it for sure is to re-chrome but that costs loads of money.

It can be avoid by wearing cotton gloves, but even that can be very uncomfortable.

If you've seen the dark badger airbrush, this has been done to it deliberately to save you waiting for it to happen,