egmccann Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 (edited) Rgh. Ok. Trying to get something finished up here... Setup - Thayer-Chandler Omni1000. Compressor, normally 20-ish PSI.Water trap in line. Generally works fairly well. Finally getting around to "just *finishing* a 1/32 Macci 205. I have some paint *somewhere*... Get the bottom painted (and notice something to fix, and repainted.) Get the top - Italian Tan. Get out my admittedly old Pollyscale. Mix it up, thin it down, start to spray... Nothing. OK, maybe there was a chunk of paint clogging or something. Clear the paint. clean the brush. Carefully pour and thin again... still nothing. Huh. Clean the color cup. Sprays clean. Backflush is clean. Take the brush apart. Clean it anyway. Nothing but metal, good thorough clean. Spray water through it - good to go! ... but not. Another cleanout, switch to some Model Master enamels - since nothing's sprayed anyway. Thin, pour... still no spray. Play with the air pressure, though I haven't really had to before. No go. Same deal - paint's in the cup, but won't spray. Air's definitely going through the brush, and this paint's pretty new - and thinned the way I normally do. Clean out, run thinner through spray until clean, backflush clean. Stripped the brush anyway and cleaned everything. Lot of elbow grease and pipecleaner for the color cup. No residue. Everything's nice and shiny. Put it away 'til the next day. Same deal. Decided to start with some Lifecolor white for the spinner... talking to my LHS owner, he mentioned needing lower air pressure, but still. No paint draw. Play with air pressure. De nada. Another cleaning (no full disassembly, just a good color cleaning.) Pulls water. Thin the heck out of the tan. No chunks. We're at maybe 60% thinner, paint's making skim milk look like house paint. Pull and... nothing. Another cleaning, and it pulls water through just fine. So I've got a brush that's now just pulling water through, but won't pull three different brands of paint (decently thinned.) I'd even pushed it up to over 30 PSI (coming close to 40,) which I haven't had to do for any of my paints before. Any ideas? Edited July 13, 2015 by egmccann Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dnl42 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Have you checked the Troubleshooting page on Don's Airbrush Tips? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
egmccann Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Have you checked the Troubleshooting page on Don's Airbrush Tips? Scanning through it, all of that was done at some point. No change. Closest thing he has on there is "Air but no paint." For his check list? - Paint too thick: Tried three different paints, thinned the heck out of one of them, and upped the pressure. no change. Even thinned past what I normally do (which normally works) and upped the pressure past what I normally do with the same paint types/brands. - needle chuck loose: Nope. The needle moves back, and it's been disassembled and reassembled. Needle's moving. - Dried paint - again, cleaned repeatedly. - Vent hole - there. Or I leave the cap off. - Siphon - N/A. Gravity feed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
egmccann Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 (edited) Issue resolved. Despite all the cleaning, and cleaning, and re-cleaning - *including* the color cup, both from inside the cup and through the feed tube - there was apparently a chunk of grey paint (last thing that sprayed successfully) in there. Thick enough to not let paint get through, thin enough for water/thinner. (I normally use a pipe cleaner, sometimes doubled up, to tackle that. Apparently that didn't work - ended up using a toothpick.) Edited July 14, 2015 by egmccann Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Don Wheeler Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Thanks for coming back with the solution. A lot of times people ask about a problem and then disappear. So you never know whether they fixed it or not. Yours was really strange. Usually if an airbrush will spray water it will also spray properly thinned paint. Good to hear you got it figured out. Don Quote Link to post Share on other sites
balls47 Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 I'm glad that you fixed the problem and then shared your solution. I have one question about the offending gray paint. When you sprayed the gray paint, did you clean the airbrush right away, or did you just spray cleaner through it until the cleaner came out clear? Your answer will be FYI stuff to be stored away for future use. Thanks, buddy. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
egmccann Posted July 16, 2015 Author Share Posted July 16, 2015 I'd cleaned it out (versus just a spray-through and back flush) as it was somewhat late and I wouldn't be applying other colors for at least a day. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dmk0210 Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 (edited) I have one question about the offending gray paint. When you sprayed the gray paint, did you clean the airbrush right away, or did you just spray cleaner through it until the cleaner came out clear? Your answer will be FYI stuff to be stored away for future use. I had a very similar issue, but had a clump of paint in the body of the airbrush (which was actually difficult to get out of my Badger). I'm pretty religious about cleaning right after using the brush. However, I have been lax about straining my paint. I wonder if a clump of paint from the bottle might have gotten lodged in there and moved around enough to cause some inconsistency but wasn't able to back flush out. I think that is what caused my issue. Edited July 22, 2015 by dmk0210 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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