Total airbrush beginner having problems

[Mikey-1980]

Hi all,

 

My wife kindly bought me and ARP150 cordless airbrush for Christmas

 

 

Which is perfect for a total novice like me. 

 

However I have been having alot of issues pertaining to spluttering and paint flow through the nozzle. 

 

I'm using Tamiya paint with X20a thinner to a 30/70 ratio of paint to thinner.  Also using a few drops of flow improver with the mix that is mixed separately in a plastic shot glass prior to pouring into the hopper. 

 

The mix is to a skimmed milk consistency as per recommendations and it it spluttering almost instantly. I'm sure it is user error but has anyone had experience with these types of airbrushes and experienced similar issues? 

 

My local airbrush guru @binbrook87 has been a massive help but we can figure out a solution. 

 

any help will be most appreciated

 

cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snowboar]

I’ve just Sussed airbrushing out gragually add more thinner until it sprays do it a couple of drops at a time also put a little bit of thinner in airbrush before paint also have it on full power I also have a suspion that it might not be up to it I bought 2 compressors before I got 1 that worked if it’s less than 60 quid probably gonna struggle also with Tamiya when you open the jar if you fill it up to the start of the neck it will be about perfect 

[bmwh548]

Do you mean that paint just splutters out when you turn on the "compressor"? Without pulling back on the trigger? That would suggest the needle isn't seating properly/nozzle is cracked/there's a bad seal somewhere.

[Snowboar]

Another thing make sure the tip of needle is wet I press needle onto a wet sponge each time after spraying hope ya suss it I’ve been there it did my head in for weeks

No that sounds like it’s too thick

[Snowboar]

If it’s too thin it will spider web that’s why you need to add it a few drops at a time like I say put thinner in first so it lubes up the air gun more

Or make it too thin then add more paint

Also check end of needle

[Mikey-1980]

Cheers both, 

 

I wetted the tip (ooo err! Haha!) And pre sprayed through some thinner before adding the paint. It di spider web a little bit the issue I finding is dispersion when pulling the trigger. If the paint is any thicker it clogs straight away. The compressor is fully charged and is supposed to be rated to 20 psi for around 30 mins. 

 

It splutters and doesn't spray very well when compared to just water going through. 

 

At a bit of a loss at the moment 

[bmwh548]

Did you try a single bottle of paint during all the experiments? At some point I've had some gritty Tamiya (old stock probably) that would clog up completely random. After putting it through a filter it left grit inside the filter (the pigment must have solidified at some point). After filtering it the problem went away. The issue is more predominant as you go down on the nozzle diameter. 

[Casey]

13 minutes ago, Mikey-1980 said:

The compressor is fully charged and is supposed to be rated to 20 psi for around 30

The advertised 1.2kg/cm^2 is 17psi.

 

Tamiya is usually easy to spray and should not give you such trouble. When you eliminate the paint issue, the only thing that is left is to check device for problems - needle, air leaks. You can try to polish the needle for example.

 

 

[Mikey-1980]

I can give it a go! 

 

I've seen people use vaseline to lube the needle, though wouldn't this restrict the paint flow? 

[dogsbody]

Based on my limited airbrush use, you probably need to thin the paint some more. Using Tamiya and Gunze-Sangyo through my old Badger 150 airbrush, I used about a 45/55 ratio of thinner/paint with a wee bit of flow improver/paint retarder, at about 12 psi. I didn't have any issues with the airbrush, just with my ability to use it.

 

 

 

Chris

[Casey]

Before you go with that, you might want to look at your airbrush very closely.

 

There is a good tutorial set of how airbrush is supposed to work, try to check how the nozzle and needle on your airbrush work and are built - this might give you ideas what can be wrong with your device. I still think it is not the thinning problem since you already do 30/70 thin paint/thinner PLUS flow improver, unless your Tamiya paint is really broken.

 

 

 

And especially this one:

 

 

 

[Snowboar]

It’s probably the compressor try it the other way start with the paint proper thin the add a drop of paint mix try then another etc till it coats at a good enough rate also press the trigger down for air then pull back for paint then push back to the start position before you realese the trigger other wise you dry paint on the tip like I say bud it took me months to get it it’s a complete wind up lol but it’s a bit of a feel thing hope ya suss it but if the adding gradual doesn’t work I bet it’s the compressor I’d also say Tamiya is the easiest paint to spray imo so stick with that till ya suss it 

[binbrook87]

21 hours ago, Mikey-1980 said:

I can give it a go! 

 

I've seen people use vaseline to lube the needle, though wouldn't this restrict the paint flow? 

Hey Mikey. I also saw the YouTube video on lubing the needle with vaseline but I'm pretty sure that would interfere with the paint so I'd stay clear of that one! As the last poster has mentioned try starting with just thinners and add drops of paint until it starts to dry up and spit again. Maybe this airbrush needs thinner paint than others? Keep persevering...you'll get the hang of it and rarely feel the need to revert back to the hairy stick or rattle cans again 😁

[Mikey-1980]

 

Cheers gents!

 

I'll keep at it!

[Lewis95]

Strip it down entirely and clean it mate. I've found that sometimes, if I've not cleaned the needle or mechanisms thoroughly, it messes with the spray. I've also found that if you jam the needle all the way in and tighten the screw too much, this also throttles the airbrush. 

[nheather]

My comment isn’t particularly helpful or encouraging but is my experience.

 

When I started off as a beginner I went in with the common attitude of ‘get something cheap to start with’, I figured that expensive gear would be a waste as I would not have the skills to do it justice, that I would upgrade when my skills improved.

 

So I bought a Chinese copy of an Iwata Revolution CR - it looked fantastic, very well made - but I struggled with it.  Because ‘only a poor workman blames his tools’, I just put my failed attempts down to me - I had the mix wrong, I was using the wrong pressure, I was too close, I was too far away - I blamed myself.  I bought books, I watched videos but couldn’t get reliable results.

 

Eventually, I decided to go on a course at airbrushes.com.  They told us to bring our airbrushes along (if we had one) but that there would be plenty of different Iwata airbrushes to use on the course (the course was a bit of a Iwata sales and marketing exercise to be honest, they are the UK distributor after all).  So I started with my airbrush with ink on paper at the start of the course, I was still making the same mistakes or so I thought and then I switched to the genuine Iwata Revolution at my station.  What a transformation, I was spraying fine, smooth and consistently.  I came away with much lighter pockets having bought an Iwata TR.

 

In this case it was the brush all the time.  Essentially I had spent months fighting with an airbrush, cloned, built cheaply and with poor quality control - I had an iffy airbrush but as a beginner I was blaming myself.

 

I have since seen quite a few of these cheap Chinese airbrushes, some have been great, some have been terrible, most somewhere in between, the problem is the inconsistency, you never know what you will get until you try it.  Often, you can’t even put it right because spares aren’t available.

 

Some time later, with experience under my belt, I went back to the Chinese airbrush to figure out what was wrong.  I polished the needle, that didn’t really help.  Then I looked at the nozzle seal and thought it looked badly moulded, rather distorted.  I looked around for replacement o-rings without any success so I tried beeswax on the thread - that helped a lot and made the airbrush spray reasonably well.  I still have it because I hate throwing things away, but haven’t used it since and probably never will.

 

So my advice to beginners is to buy a branded airbrush, one with spares and support.  You don’t have to get the top of the range, there are plenty of introductory brushes from the likes of H&S, Badger, Iwata, Iwata Neo, SparMax and others.

 

So to the OP, based on my experience, you may not be doing anything wrong, it sounds like you are doing all the right stuff, it could be just the airbrush - poorly fitting seals, nozzle, needle etc.  My first suggestion would be to use some beeswax on the nozzle thread to see if that improves things.