Hobby tips - Cleaning your airbrush

As some tutorials in the web I read tried to tell me told how difficult the cleaning process of my airbrush should be and how it really isn't I thought a short article to sum up my experiences would be the best.

First of all: Cleaning your airbrush is neither complicated nor will it cost you much time. On the opposite! It should be part of your painting routine because it really makes the painting process much more comfortable.
If you ever opened your mouse to clean it.. Tadaaaa you can clean your airbrush too.

Before you start

Empty the paint pot of your gun and spray it clean. First with water and if this is clear I fill in some window cleaner and spray it empty. That removes most of the paint in the gun.
Skip the step with the window cleaner if you just change paints. The alcohol/isopropanol in the cleaner often reacts with the paint and causes it to clump. Hard learned lesson here.

Necessary tools

If you need special tools to clean your gun depends (as far as I know) a bit on the gun itself. Mine doesn't need a special wrench to open it. I can do that all by hand. There are also many special cleaners for the airbrush.
But two things that you should have at hand are special brushes (special because of their size) and a needle to clean the nozzle. I got myself a special cleaning kit for that.

Disassembling your gun

The disassembling is pretty easy. I don't think I have to tell you much about it. Just unlock everything and sort the parts on your table. Have a smooth surface that the tiny parts do not roll around. Paper towel is pretty nice, it is soft and will soak up the cleaning agent later.
The only thing you should be careful of is that you do not remove the o-rings (e.g. the one of the nozzle).

Cleaning the gun

Also nothing wild here. I use window cleaner and water for the cleaning process. Here its useful if the tools are soaked with your cleaning agent, the paper towel helps you don't make a mess on your table. At first I clean the painting pot and the gun from the outside. After that I use my brushes to clean the inside of the gun.

Then I use my needle tool to clean up the nozzle. The tool carves out the
dried paint which may have collected inside the nozzle. You will be surprised how much dried paint this thing carves out here...

If the gun is too dirty for cleaning it this way, I throw everything into my sonic cleaner and give it the needed cleaning time. I can't give you an advice here because every device works different with different power. After this make sure everything dries completely.

Assembling the gun

If everything is clean, reassemble your gun. Its nearly as easy as the disassembling. Just be careful and always tighten the stuff only finger-tight and not with force.
The only tricky part is to get the small part behind the trigger into position (please don't ask how this thingy is called, I don't know it in german either). I use my pincers to arrange this part while pulling back the spring. Then I inject the needle. At this point you should use some care because if you use force because something in the gun blocks it, it easily bends and you have to buy a new one. But I never(!) had problems at this stage. Just be gentle and everything will be fine.

I usually pull the needle and check if it retreats and comes back nicely. If you really want to be sure everything works as intended you can to some testspraying with clean water. This will not mess up your cleaning and you can be sure everything is fine.

That's it! No rocket science, no? The cleaning between paint changes will only cost you one or two minutes but safe you lots of time and nerves later because the paint will not clump as often as before. The cleaning after the painting session also only takes around ten minutes at the most if you will clean the gun regularly. If you have to throw it inside the sonic cleaner etc. it will take much longer.

Hope this helped you to loose the fear of the process (if you ever had it)!


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: I know that moving pictures would be a tremendous help here. I'm trying at the moment what I can do perhaps I can deliver something in the near future :)

P.P.S:  Welcome aboard new follower ;) Hope you find something useful here.