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So I am on my second airbrush. And it has stopped working. Paint went splattery, then stopped flowing. I wiped tip. Then I cleaned out bowl as best I could and tried to fire through screen was stuff. No joy. Then I took out needle and cleaned. Still no flow. And now when I put wash in cup and block nozzle with paper towel I getno bubbles. So figured nozzle. V carefully removed nozzle. Was full of funky dry paint. So I GENTLY picked outpacing with pin as best I could. Rebuilt. Still won't fire water through or make bubbles when blocked.

Help!

And also how do I not have this palaver every time I airbrush. It was a long session with GW white (thinned with airbrush medium about 2 parts medium to one part paint ish) only doing Zenital highlights with stencil shapes on about twenty models. Yesterday I did tester and fired white and Ghost Tint (un thinned) through.

Any suggestions?

You're not cleaning it properly. You think you are, you're probably trying really hard to be diligent, but you're not cleaning it properly.

Get the manual, put a cloth on a table or something to stop stuff bouncing and rolling away and break it down to every component you can, then clean each bit with an airbrush cleaning brush or similar, and very carefully reassemble.

You've got dried paint somewhere, I've experience it myself, and it is causing a narrowing of an aperture, consequently it is blocking more easily, and given opportunity, sealing up.

What can help after you get it all properly cleaned is always ensure its wet, by that I mean after a session and you will be back in a few hours/ in the morning blow plenty of water through after a quick clean and leave water in the paint cup, this will stop the paint drying inside where you haven't got it 100% clean and will behave fine the next day for you.
That's not to mean you can avoid cleaning it right as any speck of dried paint will have you tearing your hair out with stupid problems, best way is as the first reply said - learn how to strip it and clean it right after every session.
I find it easiest to dismantle the front end parts first, slacken needle and draw it out through the front then take off the rear and trigger and drop front parts, needle, and body into a shot glass about half full of cleaner, (autoair restorer is very good) and leave it for an hour or even overnight and all it needs is a light rub with a cleaning set, lubed and reassembled. All told it will take under 10 mins to strip and reassemble after a soak and wipe, you should have no more dirt problems.

Very helpful guys. An extended cleaning session beckons! That's good if that's what the problem is anyway. I'm glad to hear you so definite about it. Sounds like experience. I need to get a finer brush. The ones I got with the airbrush shed bristles v easily. I saw an Iwata engineer using brushes for cleaning dental braces which are very tiny, so I'm going to try some of those to get the bit in the cup that I can't quite see and the bit inside the nozzle in the dark recess.

If you call into a motor factors/ automotive paint mixing place you will be able to buy a cleaning kit that will include very fine bottle brush tools and small picks for cleaning paint guns, the fine ones are good for cleaning an airbrush. Another very heady tool is a basic blow gun to connect to your compressor and they cost pennies, soak paints and blast off any gunk with compressed air at max pressure, that will clean without any poking that might damage the metal surfaces inside the paint tip etc. makes cleaning a breeze