What can I soak my airbrush in to clean it?

Laquer thinner seems to work on my Iwata, also used more or less exclusively for acrylics. Sounds crazy I know. Ammonia solution gets the thumbs up too.

Hi

Can you recommend a brand of Lacquer thinner or any will do? Either Lacquer thinner or ammonia, do you just soak all the parts in it? How long? Any risks of any kind?

Sorry to sound stupid, I love my airbrush.

Thanks again

Patrick

varois83 wrote in news:4ef7b1a0-45f2-4f62-a4c2- snipped-for-privacy@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com:

If you have access to a chemistry lab, you can do what I do: sonicate the parts in acetonitrile (methyl cyanide). Knocks acrylic right off.

varois83 wrote: : : Can you recommend a brand of Lacquer thinner or any will do? : Any brand will do. I buy it at one of the big box stores, in the yellow/orange and blue cans. Lacquer thinner is pretty much lacquer thinner, and you are only using it to clean with. Although I do use it to thin Floquil primer... : : Either Lacquer thinner or ammonia, do you just soak all the parts in : it? How long? : I used to leave the tip parts of my Paasche 'H' in a jar of lacquer thinner, assembling the bits when I was ready to paint. With my T&C airbrushes, the long needle makes that unrealistic, so I just clean the parts using pipe cleaners, q-tips and paper towels. : : Any risks of any kind? : I would not suggest subjecting plastic to lacquer thinner for extended periods.

I have had your problem with my T&C Omni 4000 - I dunk the back of the needle in lacquer thinner and run it up and down the body of the airbrush, trigger, spring and needle holder several times, otherwise it will set up. I only need to this with the Omni, a gravity feed, and not the Vega, a siphon, probably because the paint has little opportunity to get back near the body of the airbrush with the Vega.

Bruce

T&C,Thayer & Chandler?,they still around?,I had one back in thee70s at art school.

teem wrote: : : T&C,Thayer & Chandler?,they still around?,I had one back in thee70s at : art school. : They are part of Badger now, but they are still available, as are parts. Given that the airhose connection was for Badger airhoses, and they were also based in Chicago, I guess this was not an unreasonable development.

I like them for their slim barrels, and spacing from the air valve to the paint supply, whether it be the Vega (siphon) or the Omni (gravity).

And, yeah, I choose the airbrush depending on how much paint I need to shoot, although I also had a very rude experience with shooting Tamiya first (thinned with Gunze Mr. Thinner) and then moving to Polly Scale - at some point, the air passages in the Omni (the Vega needed a new barrel o-ring) got clogged, and the paint "glopped" more than atomized.

Yeah, I should have quite when I really noticed this issue, but I was pushing to get the painting finished. Now I get to remove the paint, and I have not decided if I will sand the pieces or chemically strip them...

Bruce

Thanks Bruce, that's very helpful.

Patrick

Hi

This is the original poster. I did soak all the parts of my iwata eclipse in ammonia today. Tonight I cleaned them a little deeper with a tissue then I rinsed and dried.Put it together and plugged into the air compressor, ho my god what a difference, it is so powerful now, I am totally amazed.

Thanks again

Patrick

I also use pipe cleaners to keep my Iwata's innards clean. I spray laquer and am always amazed at what comes out on the pipe cleaner.

Cheers, Dave Ambrose