Recommendation for needle sizes

[S5 modeller]

Hi chaps. 

I recently tried spraying tamiya acrylic metallic silver through my airbrush and I'm having problems. 

It's only a cheap airbrush I'm using, but it's worked well with other colours/paints. 

I tried the tamiya silver through it, but got issues with clogging. On emptying the colours cup it looks like the metallic particles in the paint have fell out of suspension, and accumulated in the base of the cup. This in turn has blocked the way to the needle and nozzle. It was a rather large problem to clean it all out. 

I'm using a 0.2 needle/nozzle on it, could that be the issue? It almost seems like the fluid part of the paint has flowed through the airbrush fine, and it's done a good job of straining the metallic particles out of the paint. Would a larger needle and nozzle combination be a better bet? 

Looking forward to someone else input into this, as I'm scratching my head over it. 

 

Matt

[colin]

Quite a few of the Tamiya metallic paints have quite corse flakes in them, .3 or above maybe better

Try Mr Hobby (Gunze) super metallics or Alclad if your stuck with a .2 needle, these are finer flakes

[Jetblast]

I've found time between mixing & spraying with some Tamiya & other metallics to be an issue, the less the better so there isn't such an opportunity for separation. You can generally see which paints will be worst affected by watching the surface after you have mixed & some will start rapidly doing their own thing as soon as you stop mixing - I'll typically try to get it mixed, in the cup & sprayed as soon as possible & for larger jobs will prepare what's required, but only put a few ml of paint into the cup at a time, stirring & refilling as I go, it's a pain but helps prevent settling.

[Sean_M]

There is a good article here on needles http://topnotch-models.com/2017/01/12/almost-the-last-word-in-choosing-an-airbrushes/

[Gremlin56]

Couldn't agree more Sean, excellent article ........

[S5 modeller]

Thanks for the advice and guide, it certainly gives me food for thought. 

Looks like I need to move up a needle size. 

 

Matt

[perdu]

I came to the gurus hoping to find treasure

 

I believe I did, up a size for me too

Thank you Sean

 

 

Bill