Cheap airbrush spare bits

[lesthegringo]

I have some good quality, expensive airbrushes that are good for the finest details and where you need precision, in fact my DeVilbiss Aerograph 63 is nearly 30 years old (£177 back in 1989!) and is still going well, even if you have to thorouhly clean it every time. The Creos P770 is also brilliant...... but....

 

I have a number of those cheapo airbrushes you can get from Amazon or evilbay, and despite sometimes getting a panning by some people I find them to be perfectly good for most of the work, especially where I'm either having to use multiple colours for effects, or I need a quick session painting small parts that are different colours, like interiors. I can load, paint, put the airbrush on my multi brush holder, get another, load paint etc. If I'm limited to half an hour I can get a lot more done, then later I can clean the brushes as a job lot. Purists will have their opinion, and that's fine as I do believe that each should work how they prefer.

 

Part of the reason they are criticised so much I think is down to the fact that they do need to be understood more than expensive units to get good results but once you learn their little foibles and how to troubleshoot them I think they can do a great job.

 

However it is clear that their biggest Achilles heel is the nozzle sealing. That irritating intermittent paint flow problem, or even more bizzarre situation where paint only flows when the needle is being moved back and forth is almost always to do with the nozzle installation, either loose or not sealing. Of course, being made from the cheapest brass material, you can't be too aggressive with tightening.

 

A lot of the units come with tiny o rings that go between the nozzle and the main body, and in some cases between the air cap and main body. While you can put wax or similar in there when the ring deteriorates, the aggressive thinners tend to leach these out.

 

What I want to find are teflon or similar equivalents to the rubber ones. If I can find a source of good replacements, I could then treat them as a consumable. Nozzles and needles are freely available, but for some reason the seals are not. Of course, if someone is selling bags of 100 rubber seals, that would also do

 

So if anyone out there can suggest where to find these, or even some completely left field alternative (for example my wife bought me a nail varnish rack for storing my paints) I would be really glad to hear of it!

 

Cheers

 

Les

[Matt_]

My backup brush is one of the fleabay jobs. The cheapo nozzle o-ring has long since melted away and I use a wrap of ptfe tape to seal. That's a bit of a PITA fo cleaning, so I mostly just avoid using it. A good source of appropriate o-rings would be fantastic.

[Rob G]

Either of you got some dimemsions for those O rings? That would help finding what's required.

[lesthegringo]

I'll get my vernier caliper on them, see if I can measure them with reasonable accuracy

 

Les