Noob: Airbrushing acrylics mostly but...

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

  1. How thorough a cleaning between color changes?

  2. Do I need to thin Model Master acrylics? I pretty much use them 100% of the time.

2

Hi!

Run acrylic thinner or windex until it is clear, no paint color for a simple color change. Thurough cleaning at the end.

I always thin model master acryl with their thinners about 50/50. Spray light coats and build it up.

3

No need to dissasemble the airbrush between colors. Just flush it out and clean the cup good. If you notice dried paint built up on the needle, you might wanna take that out and clean it.

Thin MM acrylics with MM acrylic thinner. I find they dont’ need much thinner, otherwise it just runs and spatters all over the place.

4

Thanks guys! I’ll get some MM thinner.

I use a Badger 360 so better than half of my painting is from the siphon jar FYI if it makes a dif.

5

Hi,

You can spray MM Acryl undiluted with some ABs. I’ve done so with my Iwata Revolution CR (0.5 mm nozzle) but I’d recommend thinning it, especially for any smaller nozzle. If you want to do fine lines up close at low pressure you’ll need to thin it, 50/50 or more. As Montague says, 'light coats, build it up".

For color change cleaning, I do similar to Montague but, using gravity feed AB’s I do it a little different:

After first color,

  1. Empty first color and put Windex in the cup

  2. Spray until no solid color (only Windex is spraying)

3, Dump remainder of Windex

  1. Wipe inside of cup with tissue or paper towel

  2. More Windex in cup, spray a few seconds and dump

  3. Change to new color and spray, first on scrap then model

6

Thank you!

7

My airbrush is a siphon feed, so there is a pickup tube. When I think I have cleaned enough, I touch the bottom of the pickup tube to a kleenex. If the wet spot (from thinner) is clear, I have cleaned enough. If it has any shading of color, clean some more.

8

You just wanna flush it through until the airbrush sprays clear again. I’d recommend getting a cheap ultrasonic cleaner after your done airbrushing to really clean out the dried paint.

9

Aha. Can you suggest a product / price I should look at?

10

I used my iwata HP- BCS for the first time today. I use the HP-CS most of the time. I have found that cleaning the BCS is easy. But, how do you manage the bottles? Cleaning out a bottle for each color change takes a lot of time. If you use multiple bottles, $$, then you have to worry about paint drying on the bottles.

11

I agree with that even using Badger equipment.