Dirty Filthy Basement Activty

[basementcalling]

I'm doing weathering as a way to keep my sanity with my house situation almost into it's 23rd month.

Here are tonight's victims. I pulled an old Red Caboose DRGW hopper to weather. So far just a couple grime washes and a an overall rush wash on the sides. To change things up I taped off a few channels between the ribs to see how the factory paint would contrast with the weathering washes.

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Next up. Photo two is a proto shot of CAGY 274. Rapido released this scheme but not this road number, but I decided to try the paint out along the bottom of the car on CAGY 270. These come pre faded. I have done some grime application, and rusted the roof, but have no proto shots of those, so I kept that treatment fairly light and simple. I used a craft store brand acrylic in buff to duplicate the look, and added a couple dry brushes of rust where appropriate. I scraped the acrylic off the reflective tape stripes.

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The last 2 cars are Atlas TBOX offerings. One I previously posted with splotchy Dullcoat, and that is largely corrected. It's hidden in the beaten up nature of the sides. The lower car has had several passes of fading coats from an airbrush. I stopped here to avoid the fading starting to show in speckles.

 I did fade the Railbox logo on the top car by mixing red and blue paints with white and using a toothpick and micro brush to apply the paint over the entwined arrows. I had to use a small line brush to smooth the paint layer, and the toothpick to scrape off some extra paint that went onto the yellow sides. Next time I think I'll look for some decals instead, as that was about 45 minutes of work per side and I am still not 100% happy with how it turned out. I can hope additional layers of washes will mute the splotchy look and blend everything together.

I'm missing my copy of Tom Mann's weathering book. I am not sure if the reconditioning company was able to salvage it from the smoke damage done by the fire or not.

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Feedback is welcome.

[basementcalling]

So,  tonight the airbrush clogged. It blows air but no acrylic paint is getting through. I disassembled the nozzle.  No clog I can see. Paint cup isn't clogged. That's all I can access on this one.

It also won't atomize thinner or 91% ISO. Yet. Currently letting a cup of straight ISO soak in hopes if there is a clog internally that it will dissolve or loosen it. I was spreading a fading mix that I had added Liquitex matt flat varnish to in order to further thin the mix and ensure a flat finish for more weathering washes.

Any airbrush expertise from the crowd is welcome. This is the brush in question.
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[Scottl]

I run lacquer thinner through my air brush and clean it with the same when I need to take the brush apart.  I do it outside to avoid the fumes.

I've taken to running some Badger air brush cleaner/conditioner through the brush every time I change a color.  It *seems* to help prevent clogging, but not really sure yet.

[basementcalling]

I run lacquer thinner through my air brush and clean it with the same when I need to take the brush apart.  I do it outside to avoid the fumes.

I've taken to running some Badger air brush cleaner/conditioner through the brush every time I change a color.  It *seems* to help prevent clogging, but not really sure yet.

Scott, I've got odorless mineral spirits, so that is next. Disassembled the needed and found one particle, but even with it cleaned off and reassembled, no paint flow. Not sure where else to look for a clog. May have to disassemble the body and soak it

[Scottl]

I would try that next.  I find no matter how much I clean with water, paint eventually fouls things up.  It is possible a larger particle from the paint was sucked up and clogged.  Some people recommend running the paint through a filter but that seems messy to me.

[dem34]

You really should invest in at least one bottle of something hot as the nuclear option. I don't use it all the time but I use Tamiya cleaner once every 2 months in the garage with an N95 and that leaves the brush good as new.

[peteski]

Mineral Spirits are way too mild to dissolve those paint clogs.  You need Lacquer Thinner (or maybe acetone).
Water-based acrylic paints (they are all enamels) are difficult to remove from a clogged airbrush. Even Lacquer Thinner will just soften them and turn them into softer slime.

You try to get Lacquer Thinner in the paint cup, then use a source of compressed air to blow into the paint drain hole in the bottom of the paint cup while holding the needle wide open.  That might dislodge the clog and spit it out from the airbrush nozzle.  Or you can try the reverse: apply compressed air into the airbrush nozzle while holding the needle wide open (to unclog the paint passages thorough the paint cup.

You should be able to dissemble the entire airbrush to gain access to all the paint passages, then using soft tools like toothpicks or pipe cleaners, ream out all the passages.  You will likely also have to give everything a bath in Lacquer thinner.

[basementcalling]

Soaked every part I could pull out of the airbrush body overnight in mineral spirits. Reassembled the airbrush and still no liquid flow.  It's a cheap off Amazon cordless battery airbrush but still,  less than a dozen uses.

[peteski]

Soaked every part I could pull out of the airbrush body overnight in mineral spirits. Reassembled the airbrush and still no liquid flow.  It's a cheap off Amazon cordless battery airbrush but still,  less than a dozen uses.

I'll repeat - mineral spirits will unfortunately not touch congealed water-based acrylics.  You might as well dunk the parts in water.  IMO the problem is not with the airbrush but with the paint.

[basementcalling]

I'll repeat - mineral spirits will unfortunately not touch congealed water-based acrylics.  You might as well dunk the parts in water.  IMO the problem is not with the airbrush but with the paint.

Peteski, it was a fading wash diluted 10:1 with airbrush thinner and matt medium varnish. I did get it to clear and work again, but intermittently. If I put my finger over the nozzle until the back pressure makes the liquid in the paint cup bubble, I then get spray again for a while.

[peteski]

Peteski, it was a fading wash diluted 10:1 with airbrush thinner and matt medium varnish. I did get it to clear and work again, but intermittently. If I put my finger over the nozzle until the back pressure makes the liquid in the paint cup bubble, I then get spray again for a while.

Sounds to  me like there are still some congealed bits of paint somewhere in the paint  passages.  But maybe that airbrush still has some other issues. I can't really say since I don't have that particular airbrush.   If this was my Badger 200, I could give better answers. 

[dem34]

Peteski, it was a fading wash diluted 10:1 with airbrush thinner and matt medium varnish. I did get it to clear and work again, but intermittently. If I put my finger over the nozzle until the back pressure makes the liquid in the paint cup bubble, I then get spray again for a while.

Its going to need a deep clean. There isn't really a way to beat around it with the low pressure of the handhelds you are going to eventually get accumulation as is what I have with mine from micromark. Either get something that can properly dissolve whatever you've chosen to shoot for the past uses and run through in a well ventilated area/outdoors for a few minutes. Or do a full disassembly and carefully clean everything with a thinner, lint free rags, low abrasive pipe cleaners.

[thomasjmdavis]

With acrylics, I have found it useful to pull the whole thing apart and clean the needle and the passage through the airbrush. Which is to say, open the back end and pull out the needle. (Being careful to note what order parts go in to be sure it is reassembled correctly after cleaning). Paint will set up in the oddest places.  The configuration of that airbrush is odd to me- is the red canister a water trap? pressure feed 'tank'?  I don't see the air feed...  My airbrush familiarity is limited to the Paasche VL and Badger 150, plus a little plastic toy from Testers. I did at one time also own some of the Paasche heavy duty spray guns (second hand from a lamp factory), but those were a different animal altogether.

[Mike C]

@thomasjmdavis   That is a self contained airbrush . It has a USB port to charge the battery that is in the red cylinder that contains the air pump.

[peteski]

@thomasjmdavis   That is a self contained airbrush . It has a USB port to charge the battery that is in the red cylinder that contains the air pump.

But I would imagine that there should still be a way to fully disassemble it (including removing the needle), in order to give it a thorough cleaning/tuneup.  The problem appears to be with the paint passages, not with the air supply.