Quick question.

M

Mr. Magoo

Guest
All airbrushes and paints result in tip dry and clogging EVENTUALLY. Is that a fair statement?

If so, what would you say is a reasonable amount of time one should go between clogs and cleaning for (1) tip dry and (2) any type of internal cleaning, even if only flushing with water.

As some of you will recall, I've had terrible problems with that. Since I started, I've increased that time quite a lot but I still think I should do better. Tipdry, especially, has been much reduced by changing paints so that now only internal clogs in the tip or spray head is happening a little too frequently. So has using Medea cleaner. That stuff is really good, even works well on paint dried on brushes and spills.

Ya know, cleaning liquids in bottles is one of the biggest retail scams going as no one product is any better than any other and some are downright useless. With that in mind I resisted buying brush cleaner until desperation moved me. This is for any noobs out there with the same thoughts. If you haven't bought any yet, be sure to do so, otherwise you're really missing out.
 
I think that is a fair statement. The second part depends on a few things... Tip dry... if you are spraying big consistent areas with a good flow of paint - unlikely you will get tip dry. If you are doing little dots and daggers, get tip dry very quickly. IT will change with any given paint or reduction, temperature and humidity. You shouldn't get clogging in the nozzle with clean paint and you can keep it agitated in the cup. I've had golden high flow in the cup for over 6 hours on some occasions. I change colour regularly and flush between colour changes. I flush acetone through about every 10 hours of spraying.
 
I don't think clogging us necessarily inevitable, especially if you know your paint really well, and have your cleaning spot on. Am probs about to jinx myself, but I haven't had a clog ever in my micron and had it over a year now. But there are just those times where you may have a glob in the paint or a dodgy bottle etc, so it kind of goes with the territory as a possibility.

Tip dry is the nature of the beast, air flowing over paint will want to dry it. But can be made negligible with the right reduction. Some colours are more prone than others due to pigment. I can pick off tip dry once an hour with some, with black more like every 15 - 20 mins (I always have trouble with black lol) Many people polish their needles so that paint has almost nothing to stick too. (I don't do that cos I know Id mess up the needle lol). At the beginning though I felt like I was forever dealing with it, it does get better :)
 
You've got 2 threads going that are giving you similar answers, but your question here is
All airbrushes and paints result in tip dry and clogging EVENTUALLY. Is that a fair statement?

I'd say no. . . . once you are more experienced.
when you're new it seems to be a constant battle to get the brushes to do what you know they are capable off. so many things to learn.

do you remember learning to drive ?? did you jump straight in, start it up and drive at 100mph around a chicane ? no, you had to learn to start it, stop it, steer it.... see where I'm heading ?
Unfortunately what your dealing with is normal........... frustrating but normal. It does get better.

I'll save the rest of my post for the other thread
http://www.airbrushforum.org/threads/status-report.15980/#post-237900
 
As jackeb said...Tip Dry and clogging are likely always present to some degree yes but how we deal with them from beginner to more seasoned painter is different..For one easy example..beginners stop to much..What dries paint? Being allowed to dry is generally what dries paint LOL..Don't stop too much and less tip dry..But that's hard unless you have that experience not to look up at your reference quite as often and when you do get into that natural tip picking whilst contemplating your next paint need...Clogging is much the same, if you have less tip dry going on this relates generally to less clogging but straining the paint and constantly agitating during the session is also important, it stops those natural clogs occurring through paint settling which all paint does..If using a siphon you can buy little filters for your paint hose to ensure whats entering the gun isn't clumps of anything but naturally over time these accumulate..We combat this by spraying the crap outta your gun in between strokes to keep it constantly free of clumps and help keep that tip wet..

Obviously natura environment, paint your using skill level etc etc etc etc al contribute to some degree but with time at the board you just better learn to deal with such and work around issues...
 
PS If you want a good deep clean brush cleaner that's not a scam its called thinners :)..just make sure you dont put in any gun that has to much rubber. PTFE is fine in thinners and I regular soak my whole gun in in minus the airvalve assembly..(The thinners can swell rubber so like to avoid issues) i always regulary have a siphon bottle full of thinners for a good cleaning spray in between colors and such, no matter if its water color or uro's I'm using...It reay helps disodge paint other "cleaners" wont touch...Hot water is my next go to option...
 
A number of people take the little cap off the end of the brush as well, exposing the needle tip. Pro - easier to clear tip dry... con... risk of bending needle or scratching work...
 
One thing that I think catches up a lot of people early in their AB experience is proper trigger use. By which I mean the practice of air on -> paint on -> paint off -> air off. If you don't have that order of motion burned into muscle memory yet, you can end up doing a lot of air off -> paint off without noticing/realizing, which results in a little bit of paint being pushed out and left to dry on the external bit of the needle between strokes, which in turn accumulates rapidly with each stroke till there's a nodule of paint around the tip, and the internal diameter of the nozzle is reduced by layers of dried paint. I think this is one of the major reasons why beginners experience tip dry and related clogs with much greater frequency.
 
Its now a week after making this post an I've had some improvement, mainly due to keeping air on that reduces tip dry, but when it happens I keep an eraser nearby and just jam the tip into it and twist and that usually removes the dried. Now its just the build up of paint layers inside the nozzle that causes the most trouble. This is certifiable because a thorough cleaning usually restores proper operation.

Most of this holiday weekend was spent proving this with just two paint brands, ComArt and EFX. However, I'vve also proved (to my satisfaction) that some colors are vastly more troublesome than others. For example, I've not geen able to prevent ComArt orange paint from spidering - it spiders no matter what I do. The paint simply seems too thin.

I should have stated much earlier what my expectations are; I seek to be able to make nice, crisp lines with sharp edges and no fuzziness, overspray or spidering, not merely just very thin lines. I now know that is a tall order as I now know by examining many of the finished works posted here that most such sharp boundaries are made by masking.
 
You will never ever get, as you put it, "nice, crisp lines with sharp edges and no fuzziness, overspray". Airbrushes are not made for that. They make a centre line and the edges are fuzzy. The further away you stand the less fuzzy it looks but it is still not sharp. If you want sharp line then you need to use masks, shields, pencils or brushes. Even this sample has fuzzy edges but it is more than good enough for me because I'm not gonna view it from that close. I did this with a Micron and E'tac burnt umber.

micron_sample1_sml.jpg
 
I should have stated much earlier what my expectations are; I seek to be able to make nice, crisp lines with sharp edges and no fuzziness, overspray or spidering, not merely just very thin lines. I now know that is a tall order as I now know by examining many of the finished works posted here that most such sharp boundaries are made by masking.

Agree with AndreZA, Ive only been in the game for a few weeks but have found that crisp lines are hard to come by with an airbrush. I love the smooth look that airbrushing gives but also desire the crisp edges that you are talking about. I have pretty quickly added colour pencils to my airbrush works for that exact reason, just to crisp up a few edges, works a treat and leaves me with the best of both worlds.
 
If you can get fine enough lines, you technically could get a fairly crisp edged border by drawing a fine line, then scribbling/crosshatching to fill in behind it until you have enough margin to cover the overspray (the "fuzzyness") when you back up to get a wider spray for proper infilling. However that would be a very inefficient way to get a solid color, and would risk incurring a lot of unwanted visual texture.

Texture can be a good thing (google Wayne Barlowe, and look at how he uses diegetic textures as crosshatching in his pencil sketches), but it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish, and how quickly.
 
Its now a week after making this post an I've had some improvement, mainly due to keeping air on that reduces tip dry, but when it happens I keep an eraser nearby and just jam the tip into it and twist . . . .

That's a really good way to cause damage to the needle tip !!
A make-up sponge or a baby toothbrush dampened with either water or cleaner is effective and much less brutal
 
Its now a week after making this post an I've had some improvement, mainly due to keeping air on that reduces tip dry, but when it happens I keep an eraser nearby and just jam the tip into it and twist and that usually removes the dried.

Pulling the leg a bit? if so LOL, if not DOH!..and if so, you need to start at the beginning again..:)

and yes as you put it yourself as andre does after, airbrushes make fuzzy edges and stencils make sharp ones and all lines feature either a sharpness or a fuzziness so thats handy and even more so after you jam your needle into an eraser a few times LOL..I really hope you were joking and even if you we're I hope other beginners don't see it as a new fandangled tip picking procedure...ALL other beginners, don't do that LOL
 
I did this with a Micron and E'tac burnt umber.

View attachment 43712
That looks pretty good, good enough for me, anyway. What you did there, I can also do but not consistently. What drives me mad is how the line always deteriorates, whereas yours didn't.

I'm looking for cake and eat-it-too, crisp lines and smooth blending.

Am I causing my own problems by using more than one brand of paint during a session? Causing more gunk buildup in nozzle, than if I'd just stuck with one? I'm noticing that the rate of clogging and/or need to clean is quite variable, after I had a session of several hours with no clogging. However, I failed to notice what paint was using.
 
RE: the ERASER: I'm serious . . . . . and why the uproar, it works very nicely. Here-to-fore I was jabbing into a crease in my jeans, but it is now too hot for jeans. Using the Pink Pearl brand which is non-crumbly.
 
Am I causing my own problems by using more than one brand of paint during a session? I'm noticing that the rate of clogging and/or need to clean is quite variable, after I had a session of several hours with no clogging. However, I failed to notice what paint was using.

It's quite plausible. Even among paints which are in the same broad family (like "acrylics") you can have a lot of variety in the chemistry used by individual brands and formulas, with a lot of potential for incompatibilities. Stuff like the solvent used by brand A causing a coagulating reaction in the binder of brand B, or other such things. So if you have such an incompatibility, and the brush isn't flushed thoroughly enough between paints, you can get cross contamination effects inside the brush.
 
That looks pretty good, good enough for me, anyway. What you did there, I can also do but not consistently. What drives me mad is how the line always deteriorates, whereas yours didn't.

Why multiple brands? Necessity, I ran out black and white in E'tac.

I'm looking for cake and eat-it-too, crisp lines and smooth blending. You'll say that I'm rolling the stone up the mountain, and perhaps you're right, but I'm starting to get close and if I can get 1/32" lines with consistency, I'll achieve my goal. Let me back up a minute: if perchance you saw my 2 posts of first works, you will have noted that they are LINES DRAWINGS of white on black and they're not half-bad in terms of reaching goal. I've also recovered from the notion of artistic purity, that is, using only one type of tool. I'm fairly skilled at pin striping with a 10/00 brush, something that most professionals couldn't do because they're married to certain kinds of brushes. I've a couple years practice invested in that and so there's no reason why I shouldn't make use of it along with the airbrush. I've just been trying to make the AB do the same.

QUESTION:Am I causing my own problems by using more than one brand of paint during a session? Causing more gunk buildup in nozzle, than if I'd just stuck with one? I'm noticing that the rate of clogging and/or need to clean is quite variable, after I had a session of several hours yesterday with no clogging. However, I failed to notice what paint was using.
 
OK, I just noted the reply from Nessus, so I'll take it as affirmative, NEVER mix paints. In fact, I should toss out the others just so I never get tempted (lots of nice pearls and metallics there to cause no end of trouble.
 
RE: the ERASER: I'm serious . . . . . and why the uproar, it works very nicely. Here-to-fore I was jabbing into a crease in my jeans, but it is now too hot for jeans. Using the Pink Pearl brand which is non-crumbly.

You generally want to be gentle with the needle. Jabbing or rubbing it into a harder material like rubber (or denim) risks bending the tip. I think this could be done safely (if carefully) with an Eclipse needle (though I personally wouldn't chance it when there are guaranteed safer options at hand), but I know from experience that sort of treatment would be Russian roulette with a SOTAR needle. I've not actually done that with a SOTAR needle, but I have damaged one before, and so have a feel for what it takes.

A second reason is that jabbing the tip into a solid eraser might compact some of that dried paint back into either the nozzle or the airflow gap. When cleaning the needle/nozzle of tip dry, it's best to use a method that sweeps either perpendicular to the needle, or outward/forward. Sweeping (or packing, as the case may be) back can result in paint getting into the airflow gap around the nozzle, and tends not to clean as effectively inside the "step" where the nozzle transitions to the needle. Jabbing the tip into an eraser could actually cause some of the problems you're trying to eliminate.
 
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