Cleaning Airbrush From Metallic Paint

[Milo]

I was using Mr. Metal Color in my airbrush, and I'm having trouble getting all of the metal flakey stuff out.

[Bainford]

Yeah, that can be tough. Lots of cleaning and flushing. One of those airbrush cleaning stations may help, though I've never tried one. I am actually shopping for a second airbrush to be used for metallics only. 

[bill-e-boy]

As he said. Cleanliness is next to Godliness with an airbrush. Use lacquer thinners, a small soft brush - about size 10 model brush - and a plastic pipette to flush it out. The pipette is good to flush the paint tube if you have a siphon feed airbrush.

[Mike 1017]

bill-e- boy is right. That is how I clean my airbrush no matter what paint I use. Also clean it as soon as you are done painting that will save you a lot of grief

Mike

[Skip]

5 hours ago, Mike 1017 said:

bill-e- boy is right. That is how I clean my airbrush no matter what paint I use. Also clean it as soon as you are done painting that will save you a lot of grief

Mike

Same here, if it seems really stubborn, I might spray some decanted primer or non-metalic paint through and go back to flushing and cleaning, the few times that I did resort to that it worked picking up the extra unseen metalflake bits. Cleaning up after metalics is a matter of flushing and brushing. My other tool is a 1/8" hog bristle brush like the oil painters use, then cut its hog bristles down to a straight across at about 1/4" long, this makes a stiff cleanup brush like Iwata sells for a lot more than I have in mine the hog bristle wears out pretty quickly like after 6 or 8 cleanups. Which is why the cheap version works for me.

Edited May 5, 2024 by Skip
Auto-overcorrect is at it again!

[Phirewriter]

Another option is to have dedicated airbrushes for solid, metallic and clear paint. I clean everything thoroughly when I'm done painting but there's peace of mind, especially with clear that there won't be that tiny contaminate to spoil the paint. Even with a teardown and thorough cleaning there's always a chance to miss something that could cause issues later on. 

[Michael jones]

2 hours ago, Phirewriter said:

Another option is to have dedicated airbrushes for solid, metallic and clear paint. I clean everything thoroughly when I'm done painting but there's peace of mind, especially with clear that there won't be that tiny contaminate to spoil the paint. Even with a teardown and thorough cleaning there's always a chance to miss something that could cause issues later on. 

Thats exactly what I do. One for colours, one for white, one for clears, one for black and one for metallic paints. This stops ugly black spots on a white paint job or shimmering flat colours. I buy them from Aliexpress for cheap.

[Skip]

I should have mentioned this earlier, I regularly use my ultrasonic cleaner on my airbrush parts, with either Windex, Simple Green or Harbor Freight Ultrasonic Cleaner concentrated powder and they always end up squeaky clean.  So, I have little doubt that this would clean up the extra metalic bits floating around your airbrush. 

[shucky]

Mr. Hobby Tool Cleaner will remove ANYTHING. 

[Straightliner59]

That's one thing I like about my gravity-feed brush. It is way easier to clean, no matter the paint! I just got a really great deal on a Badger 150-4, that should be here, Saturday. I bought it for the extra capacity of the bottles, for doing larger projects, like the paint coming up on my Badman.