Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

I have a dual action gravity feed airbursh. Recently I put some vallejo chipping fluid in it to spray some vehicles. This was after reading on the vallejo website that it seemed ok to do this as it would just wash out with water. After I sprayed it I gave my airbrush a thorough cleaner with water and airbrush cleaner until I was sure it was just water coming out the other end.

The next day my airbrush wasn't working at all, so I took it apart and gave it a good clean. When I put it back together again (no parts missing!) I noticed that it was no longer working. Playing around with tha airbrush I noticed that air was coming out but paing wasn't. After taking the back off I noticed that the needle doesn't seem to be moving when using the trigger. Has anyone had this issue before. I can "manually" move the needle to get the airbrush working but obviously this isn't a solution. I'm guessing it's something to do with the mechanism but everything seems to be assembled correctly. It was onl a cheap airbrush, but I'd still like to salvage it if possible.

Thanks

You might have the manual settings of the needle so far out that the action of the airbrush is not catching it to move th needle.

I used to have a Badger Dual-Action airbrush where this was a problem.

MB

I've had this. The needle gets stuck in its shaft. Ran cleaner thru, pulled out the needle a few times and it seemed to remedy.

Hey thanks for getting back to me. Sorry I'm still a newbie to airbrushing. What do you mean by the manual settings of the needle? I screwed everything back in snug

TommyBs wrote:
Hey thanks for getting back to me. Sorry I'm still a newbie to airbrushing. What do you mean by the manual settings of the needle? I screwed everything back in snug

You know the thing at the back you screw in to tighten the needle (the chuck nut), in front of that there's another little thing that you can tighen and loosen to adjust the preload on the trigger. If it's a long way out, the trigger may not pull on the needle al all.

After you've checked that, if it's still not working... if you loosen the chuck nut, does the needle slip in and out easily or is it sticking/binding?

@AllSeeingSkink ah yes I see the bit that you mean. I tightened that and it worked. Thanks a million! I've had this issue before with some other airbrushes that I just wrote off as being cheap (even though this one was as well)

Haha, I just made a short video showing this before I realized that the question was already answered

TommyBs wrote:
@AllSeeingSkink ah yes I see the bit that you mean. I tightened that and it worked. Thanks a million! I've had this issue before with some other airbrushes that I just wrote off as being cheap (even though this one was as well)

It's something that is not covered as frequently in tutorials and what not (won't say never, but definitely it sometimes gets forgotten). When I first bought my airbrush I had no idea what that little collar did either, I just played around with it until I figured it out, lol.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

TommyBs wrote:
Hey thanks for getting back to me. Sorry I'm still a newbie to airbrushing. What do you mean by the manual settings of the needle? I screwed everything back in snug

You know the thing at the back you screw in to tighten the needle (the chuck nut), in front of that there's another little thing that you can tighen and loosen to adjust the preload on the trigger. If it's a long way out, the trigger may not pull on the needle al all.

After you've checked that, if it's still not working... if you loosen the chuck nut, does the needle slip in and out easily or is it sticking/binding?

^^^ That.

It has just been so long since working with an Airbrush that I forgot the terminology (we had a class in school, that we had to take before we could even take the class that taught airbrush design and illustration that was 100% Airbrush engineering and terminology. I can remember the things we covered, but very few of the precise terms.

Of course, I don't know now if I am going to buy another airbrush or not, because I primarily used it for 2D art, and plastic models.

And I don't build too many plastic models anymore (although if I get round to doing a starship game and designing the ships - they would be roughly 2" to 8" in length, played on a ping-pong sized table or floor) I might buy an airbrush.

But looking at the classes for my minor in film design, I need to buy a Wacom Airbrush pen for my tablet Cintiq.

If you think an airbrush is cool, wait to you use a digital airbrush, where you can change filters, stamps, or stencils at the press of a button (and simultaneously use two to six different colors through two to six different stencils at the same time).

But... Yes... The manual settings is the pin pre-load. It sets the minimum pressure or pull needed to operate the action on the needle. If it is set too high (such that a HUUUGE amount of "pull" is needed to get a minimum operation of the needle), then the needle will not operate at all.

This is a beginner's mistake that we all make, and one which, in the class I mentioned earlier, the instructor used to manually set up on a few student's airbrush every class (he would introduce a common error into everyone's brush at least five or six times during the term, which we would then be tested on whether we could figure it out). We'd be sitting there with our mouths hanging open, taking the action apart, and putting it back together yet failing to get it to work (except maybe by dumb luck).

So... Congratulations. You now have Airbrush +1 skill level.


MB