Airbrushing for Beginners 4

A "working clean" is a quick cleaning routine you can perform while you’re still painting. You might do this between colours, after noticing a little tip dry, or whenever the airbrush starts behaving differently.

1 - First, empty the colour cup.

2 - Add a small amount of your dedicated

paint cleaner, roughly a quarter of the cup or less.

3 - Create a backflow using the technique we learned earlier in the course and allow the cleaner to bubble through the colour cup for a few seconds. This helps loosen paint inside the front section of the airbrush.

4 - Check your colour cup. If the cleaner becomes very dirty, I recommend dumping it rather than spraying all of that paint residue through the nozzle.

5 - Add a little more cleaner.

6 - Next, loosen the needle chuck at the rear of the airbrush and gently pull the needle back a small amount.

7 - Repeat the backflow. Because the needle is now slightly retracted, you may notice more vigorous bubbling inside the colour cup. Keep your model parts away from the area while doing this and continue wearing gloves and eye protection.

8 - Once the cleaner is relatively clear, spray the remaining liquid through the airbrush.

9 - Reseat the needle carefully and tighten the needle chuck.

10 - Finally, clean the exposed needle tip and nozzle cap gently using a cotton swab with the appropriate cleaner or thinner. At this point, you should be ready to continue painting.

At the end of a painting session, I recommend performing a more thorough clean. When you’re new to airbrushing, doing this regularly also helps you learn how your airbrush actually goes together. Every airbrush should come with an exploded diagram in its manual, and most manufacturers also make them available online. Use that diagram!

There are a lot of small components inside an airbrush, and some of them are very easy to lose. Work over a tray, shallow container or clean cloth so that anything you remove has somewhere safe to go. It’s important to remember that if you’re using solvents to clean, wear gloves!

When you first start learning the process, lay each component out neatly in the order you remove it. Be especially careful with the needle and nozzle, as these are extremely precise parts and can be damaged easily. If your airbrush uses removable O-rings or seals in areas you’re cleaning with aggressive chemicals, remove them and set them aside.

Now clean the airbrush piece by piece.

Apply the appropriate cleaner to the components and use your cleaning brush to gently remove paint residue. If a metal part is particularly dirty, you can let it sit in an appropriate cleaner briefly to loosen the paint. There should rarely be any need for long soaking times. If you perform a proper cleaning after every painting session, heavy paint build-up should never become a major problem.

Once everything is clean, stop and inspect the parts carefully. If you can still see dried paint, the component isn’t clean yet. This is one of the biggest things I’ve learned from dealing with airbrush problems at BC Hobbies. My colleagues and I have received plenty of airbrushes that customers believed were broken. The overwhelming majority of the time, the actual problem was dried paint or residue somewhere inside the airbrush.

Once your parts are clean, remove any excess cleaner and allow them to dry. Replace your O-rings and seals. If your airbrush manufacturer recommends lubricant, apply a very small amount of proper airbrush lubricant to the appropriate moving or threaded parts. You really do not need much, wiping some away is probably necessary. If you’ve got visible globs of lubricant, that’s way too much.

Then reassemble the airbrush using the exploded diagram in your manual. Your airbrush should feel smooth and responsive. A well-maintained airbrush should perform very close to the way it did when it came out of the box, and if you keep up these cleaning habits, it will do so for your entire lifetime, barring physical damage to its mechanisms.

There are a handful of issues you’ll probably encounter eventually. The good news is that most of them are fairly easy to diagnose. I answer a lot of airbrush-related questions at work. One thing I’ve learned is that most problems people experience with their airbrushes can be solved with a good cleaning. People are often surprised when I show them the results. Airbrushes are precise tools, and nobody automatically knows how to maintain one the first time they pick it up.

Learning how to clean the tool is part of learning how to use it. Once you develop good maintenance habits, troubleshooting becomes much easier.

Paint Spatter

Paint spatter is one of the most common airbrushing problems. If your airbrush suddenly starts producing inconsistent dots or larger droplets of paint, the nozzle may be partially clogged. This is especially common with water-soluble acrylics because they dry quickly and can form semi-cured clumps. Start by emptying and cleaning the colour cup. If the problem continues, clean the nozzle and front end of the airbrush as you would during a full disassembly. A clean nozzle should restore a consistent spray pattern.

Constant Airflow

If air continues flowing even when you aren’t touching the trigger, the air valve is probably sticking. Paint or cleaner may have worked its way into the valve assembly, or the mechanism itself may simply need cleaning or lubrication. Paint should normally remain around the colour cup, paint channel and nozzle area. However, because the needle moves through the body of the airbrush, contamination can occasionally travel farther backwards than intended. If the trigger isn’t shutting off the airflow properly, inspect and clean the air valve mechanism.

No Airflow

If no air comes out at all, listen carefully when you press the trigger. If you can hear air hissing inside the airbrush but nothing is reaching the front, you may have a blockage somewhere between the air valve and nozzle. If you hear nothing, the problem may be in the air valve itself, compressor connection or another part of the air supply. Check your hose connections first. I know it seems obvious, but proveably ruling out the obvious is the best way to begin troubleshooting. If those are fine, clean and inspect the airbrush.

Stuck Components

Everything on a properly maintained airbrush should move smoothly. The trigger should move freely. The needle should slide without excessive resistance. Caps and threaded components should unscrew without needing excessive force. If something that normally moves freely suddenly feels stuck, dried paint is probably involved. Do not force delicate components. Clean the area instead. A stuck nozzle, needle or needle chuck can be damaged very easily if you simply try to overpower it.

Tip Dry

Tip dry happens when paint begins drying on the exposed tip of the needle. This is particularly common with water-soluble acrylics. You may notice your spray pattern becoming inconsistent, the paint beginning to spatter, or the airbrush gradually becoming less responsive. Fortunately, this is usually easy to fix. Put a little of the appropriate cleaner or thinner on a cotton swab and very gently wipe the dried paint from the needle tip and inside the nozzle cap. Be careful around the needle. It is extremely easy to bend the very tip if you catch it with the cotton swab or wipe too aggressively. Once the dried paint is gone, your spray pattern should return to normal.

Over the course of this series, we’ve covered the fundamental building blocks of airbrushing.

We learned what equipment you need and how a basic airbrush setup works. We looked at hobby paints, different paint types, thinning and safety. We learned how to control a dual-action airbrush and actually apply paint. And now we’ve covered how to clean, maintain and troubleshoot your equipment.

Those are the foundations. There is still an enormous amount you can learn from here, but most of it comes down to one thing: Practice!

My motto is practice makes proficiency. I don’t know if someone famous said that already, but if they haven’t then jeez, what a great quote if I do say so myself (which I clearly do!)

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep using the tool. Every time you paint, you’ll become a little more comfortable with trigger control, paint consistency, distance, pressure and maintenance.

I’ve tried to keep this course as short and practical as possible while giving you enough information to actually get started. And if you do run into trouble, talk to your local hobby shop.

We’re here to help you get the most out of your hobby. After all, it’s your time. I want you to enjoy every second of it.

Happy painting!

— Liam's Hobby Room × BC Hobbies