Windex alternative

[Electric Cat Dude]

For what it is worth, I have been testing airbrush parts in several solutions, including windex with ammonia, as well as a very strong anhydrous ammonia solution for more than a year and a half. There is validity to the theory that ammonia and brass do react badly together. Ammonia will leach the copper content out of brass leaving it brittle. Reality is that using a solution like Windex to clean an airbrush will never expose a brush to solution long enough to be of any harm. I have replicated decades worth of exposure without inducing any serious issues to any of the parts in testing. The one exception is to a plain nickle finish. Nickle does not fare well with exposure to ammonia, and will eventually strip from the surface of brass. It takes weeks of exposure to do it though...

Yeah I had some recent experience with this, in which I started cleaning out some old air brushes I owned using Windex (I ran out of Iwata cleaner). I did notice that on my HP-C and CM-B that the nickel finish inside of the color cup and fluid channel appeared to be coming off. This was limited only to those sections of the brush. I’m not sure if this is a result of the ammonia and Windex, or simply the fact that these air brushes are now pushing on 30 years old! I’ve never encountered this before in a chrome plated tool.

 

[DaveG]

Yeah I had some recent experience with this, in which I started cleaning out some old air brushes I owned using Windex (I ran out of Iwata cleaner). I did notice that on my HP-C and CM-B that the nickel finish inside of the color cup and fluid channel appeared to be coming off. This was limited only to those sections of the brush. I’m not sure if this is a result of the ammonia and Windex, or simply the fact that these air brushes are now pushing on 30 years old! I’ve never encountered this before in a chrome plated tool.

Iwata's are chrome finished, not nickel. Chrome is impervious to ammonia, or darn near. The process they use for plating uses electrical current through solution. The electrical waves in solution do not generally reach the bottom of the color cup thus leaving the plating weak or non-existent. It is normal for the brand... even moderate use will generally remove the finish at the bottom of the cup - far more often than not. To remove nickel from the surface, you would have to leave the parts soaking for maybe 5 (or more) days.