Tip Dry

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

OK, got my Omni 4000 on Monday arvo, couldn’t beleive my eyes, 4 working days from Coast AB to the middle of Oz, I almost cried[;)]

Anyway it has me a little miffed.

First usage I had paint dripping from the end, figured it was the needle seating, adjusted as required, all is well.

But when I tried to spray, I managed to get a fine line for about 30mm, and then it stopped.
Cleaned the tip, got around 50mm of spray length, stopped again.

I use Tamiya and Gunze Acrylics mostly, and allowing for the dry time I adjusted my air pressure both upwards and downwards, from 5 psi to 40 psi, not all at once, but testing at different intervals, not a lick of difference did it make.

I’m stumped as to whats going on, and dare I say it, with my Aztek 470, I never had tip dry, so naturally if there is a simple solution to this problem, I do not know it.

Mind you, the fine lines I did get blew me away, I glanced over to the Aztek, frowned, and put it on the shelf for my brother to practice with.[;)]

Are there additives for acrylics to reduce their drying time?
Any home made remedies etc?

Any help would be appreciated.
And bare in mind I live in Australia, so the galaxy of products available in the US, are not legally imported into this country, which really cramps a creative mind[:(]

Thanks in advance

Sean

BTW, the thinner I use is Tamiya X20A, don’t know if that makes a difference, but thought it was worth mentioning.

Thanks

2

tweety1: I use a drop or two in the colour cup of Createx retarder (AKA extender). I never get tip dry any more [:D]

Rich [8D]

3

Sometimes, with some paints I will have a similar problem and solve it with a few drops of Liquitex flow aid into the color cup. There are several different retarders availible and you can even make your own with liquid soap and lots of water.

4

tweety1, i have an omni 5000 and experienced the same thing. however, out of the box, the brush performed beautifully for about 4 or 5 months of use. then, i had a lay off of the hobby due to time constraints and when i picked the ab up again to practice, it did the same as what your talking about. no matter what ratio i thinned my paint, what psi, what amount of cleaning i still got the morse code effect or the paint would just fade out after about a second or so of painting. i use tamiya acrylics thinned 60 thinner/ 40 paint and use the same thinner you mentioned. ive never got enamels to spray well through my omni. its a good airbrush, but its mighty finicky in my opinion. things have to be just right to get the desired results. i ordered an iwata hp-c and recieved it about 3 weeks ago and it was a little easier to achieve the fine line with but still not what i would call effortless. then i read about the iwata eclipse and the praises it recieved by modellers on this forum and thought, shoot, i might as well order one of those as well. my hp-c came with a .3mm needle nozzle combo and the eclipse comes with a .35mm needle/nozzle combo. i thought what could a .05mm do to make a difference. so when i went to dixieart.com, i stumbled across a .4mm needle/nozzle conversion kit for my hp-c. it was half the price of the eclipse so i decided to purchase it instead and get a full .1mm larger needle/nozzle combo and know that it would spray the higher viscosity paints of modelling. when i installed the combo and begin spraying with it, a bright glow hovered over my workbench with a chior of angels singing and i entered into airbrush heaven! i have been spraying enamels and acrylics with it thinned at any ratio with amazing results (in my amateur book anyway). with that said, i just wonder if the omni needle and tip is large enough to handle the pigment and viscosity of model paints. there are alot of omni owners on this forum and im assuming they’re telling the truth about their experiences, that achieve good results with theirs. when i purchased the iwata, i also purchased some superlube and this seems to help tremendously with the tip dry thing. if you can find that product, i think you would be better off than trying to put drops of redarder in your paint. with the tip dry and using the iwata, ive yet to have to stop and clean the tip. my spray sessions usually last about an hour and a half. good luck. later.

5

Enamels spray fine through my Omni and the tip doesn’t dry out nearly as often as with acrylics, but I’m just so used to it now it doesn’t even bother me. I keep a Q-Tip soaked in thinner (alcohol) nearby, and whenever I sit my airbrush down my hand automatically goes to the Q-tip to wipe the paint off before it dries.

I am certain that adding retarder to the mix would eliminate the problem, but I haven’t found any locally so I haven’t tried it. One of these days I’ll remember to include some in an order, but right now I just keep a Q-tip handy. It’s just gotten to be second nature.

6

Sean,

It sounds like these other modelers have steered you in the right direction…except for Chris with his Iwata sales spiel. [:-,] [(-D]
Acrylics do dry quickly on the needle tip and that has always been a problem with airbrushing with them, especially with some of the faster thinners. I am used to it from airbrushing T-shirts because the Createx paints we use dry on the tip quickly also, especially at 60-70 psi which we spray at. I constantly clean the tip of the needle with my index finger and thumb nails by scraping the paint off, but you can also do as Music City said and use a Q-tip soaked in thinner to do this. A good needle lube like Badger’s Needle Juice and Medea’s Super Lube also help somewhat.
Try and see if you can find a retarder to experiment with such as the ones mentioned by Rich and Swanny, and see how that works. I have only tried a retarder once which was the other day and it slowed down the drying time quite a bit. I tried it with some Aqua-Flow retarder.
Aqua-Flow is a T-shirt paint much like Createx, but I doubt you can find it in Oz as it is manufactured in Georgia in the U.S.A.

Mike

7

hey mike, im trying for the booth next door to yours at the imps!![:D][:D] dont worry, im not holding my breath. later.

8

Haha. [(-D]
I wish you could make the Nationals Chris so that we could meet my friend. [:D][;)]

Mike

9

Thanks for your replies guys.
I managed to find an artists acrylic retarder here in Alice, it is water soluble, so I’m not sure how it will go with the Tamiya acrylics, seeing as they aren’t to water friendly, but I also noticed they had a flow aid to thin things out without altering the viscosity to much, so maybe a bit of both water and flow aid, then retarder might do the trick.

Jeez, talk about bucket chemistry.

At this rate it’ll take longer to mix paint then it will to build the model.

Just another thought, Golden, Createx and Liquitex, are they actually designed for airbrush use, or are they generally used in artists applications?

The brand I found is Atelier, it’s an artists acrylic retarder medium, and on their website they mentioned it was similar to Liquitex and Golden, so I’m wondering if I’m on the right track, or way off it.

Thanks

Sean

10

I am not sure about Liquitex but both Golden’s and Createx were designed for airbrush use and can be sprayed straight out of the bottle. Golden’s acrylics are considered by many as the best acrylics that money can buy.

Mike

11

Who are you and what did you do with MikeV?? That is NOT the correct picture for his signature [;)]

12

Scott,

I had to change my photo because it was incorrect. [:D]
The F-15E on my other signature picture had a single centerline fuel tank which is not correct, so I put up another picture instead. [(-D]
Obviously the artist who painted that picture did not do his homework before painting it. [;)]

Mike

13

thats a much sweeter pic of the 15 anyway. on the last house a built, we must’ve been in the flight path for an airforce base because 15’s and 16’s buzzed us regularly. oneday, one in that same paint scheme all but took my hat off as we were nailing down the roof sheathing. i was so impressed, i went home and shopped around for the 1/48 version. nice pic mike. later.

14

I envy you Chris.
I would love to have F-15’s and F-16’s rock me every week. [:D][;)]
Maybe I need to move to outside Las Vegas where the boys at Nellis are at.
They put on a great show in that region with Red Flag exercises and such. [tup]

I rarely get to see any military aircraft anymore since Clinton shut down so many good air bases around this area. Both Alameda NAS as well as Moffett Field NAS were both closed. The only one still around is Travis AFB which is a C-5, C-141 air base which is about an hour away.

Mike

15

well, im through with that house now mike so i dont see them anymore. another thing that was kinda neat, i think they were breaking the sound barrier far off a few times because we would hear this thunder clap all of a sudden miles away and my newly purchased and installed windows would rattle in their frames. now that was extra cool!!

16

See how topics can evolve completely off topic[:D]

I was in Hawaii back about 1971. Rented a motorcycle and decided to drive all the way around the island. I was cruising along the highway, nothing anywhere except sugarcane and an occasional glimpse of the ocean. Then I start hearing this whining sound. Great! This crummy bike is going to die out here in the middle of Nowhere, Hawaii. It would whine and then it would fade and quit then it would whine and then it would quit. Then this freakin F-4 rips over the sugar cane at zero feet right over the top of my head. The guy had been setting me up for about 10 minutes and he got me good! Couldn’t really blame him though, I’d have done the same thing [:0]

17

did you put on back and change your drawers??!!![:D][:D][(-D]

18

Very cool Scott. [8D][tup]
And I agree with Chris in that you probably did soil yourself. [(-D][(-D][(-D]

Mike

19

now thats the appropriate term mike, SOILED!!! [(-D][(-D][(-D] i cant just imagine a fellow with bright flowered shirt and white shorts (well except for some areas), the highway strewn with lays and various scooter parts, and a fellow gathering himself from the ditch with varying cases of road rash and “soil” running down the legs!!!
[(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D]

sorry about that fellows, where were we…oh yeah, tip dry!![:D]

20

Nah, but I probably came close[^] It’s been a looooong time, but I can still remember that SOUND. I swear he singed the sugar cane with his exhaust. And like I said, had the roles been reversed I’d probably have done the same thing!