Airbrush Information

 

 A picture of my Paasche VL Airbrush and the regulator and moisture trap. 

The large black hose runs down the the air tank shown below.

 

 My Cambell Hausfield compressor (purchased from Home Depot) and Sears 9 gallon air tank. For each airbrushing session I will typically fill the air tank to 90 PSI which gives me enough air for an entire session.
This is my homemade airbrush cleaning system. It's really a basic setup.

See my comments below regarding the steps I take in cleaning the VL. 

TIP: keep your VL clean. It will make every airbrush job easy.

 

My Techniques

I responded to a gentleman about my Paasche VL airbrush and my response was so long I though I'd include it here.  :-)  Feel free to agree/disagree with my ideas and please, let me know what you think!

<Disclaimer> The Paasche VL is the only airbrush I've owned so I can't really compare it to others.  However, I will give you my thoughts and impressions thus far.

It's a hefty tool with a good feel to it.  I find that when using the paint cup I don't even realize I'm using the airbrush.  When I use a bottle I notice the weight a bit more.  It took me a while to come up with a cleaning routine, but now that I have it's really made things easy.  Here's what I do:

  1. dispose (or recycle) the left over paint in the paint cup.  I usually use acrylics so I just put the paint cup/bottle in an old margine container of warm soapy water.
  2. if I'm spraying acrylics, I immerse the tip of the airbrush into a small bucket of warm soapy water and spray lightly.  This removes the left over paint inside the airbrush body.
  3. using a clean paint cup I run a cup full of lacquer thinner through the airbrush.  Repeat if necessary.
  4. I then remove the tip and needle and wipe the needle with a q-tip soaked in lacquer thinner and wipe the airbrush tip with the same q-tip.
  5. I usually then use a pipette to run a bit of lacquer thinner through the body of the airbrush.  I may also use a lacquer thinner soaked q-tip to clean the paint intake.
I have found that the VL can withstand almost all types of paint and thinners that you can use.  The only part that is not metal that paint comes in contact with is the nylon bushing around the needle.  BTW, the bushings' pressure on the needle is adjustable (I found out the hard way  :-)  After a year of use, this bushing is still going strong.

As far as expense goes, I've been using the airbrush for about a year and have not replaced any components.  I did purchase a new paint cup and that was downright expensive.  It was $13 Canadian for this little stainless steel paint cup.  It's been worth it though for convenience sake.

The brush itself was quite expensive when I bought it 4 years ago (I know, it sat on my self with me paranoid to use it.  :-).  I think I paid over $200 Canadian for it, but I think it can be found for much less now-a-days.

One note: I've been considering buying a Paasche H single action airbrush.  Most of my painting does not take advantage of the double action features and the extra effort in cleaning does take time.  What I'll probably do is buy the H model and use them both for various tasks.  I've heard of people using the H for enamels and lacquers which are messier to clean up.  With the H all you do is drop the paint tube into lacquer thinner and then wipe it down later.
 

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