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Hi everyone....I have a double tank compressor and Iwata eclipse airbrush....Ive been having my psi at 40 and I only use GW paints.

It is always hit and miss with me and the paint leaving the airbrush.....Ive been able to base coats things before and I thought I locked down the right consistency in the paint. However today after one base coat of paint the brush barely wants to spray any paint out only air. Ive even just tried spraying windex out and once or twice it would not happen.

Its real frustrating and I just want to be able to use my air brush any help is very appreciated

40 PSI is way too high a setting for actual airbrush work. You need to lower that, or you won't have much control. Plus, unless you have a large compressor, it will make the amount of air vary from 25-40 psi, because most small compressors have 40-45psi peak output, but only 25-35psi constant output. I usually airbrush at 17 PSI. However, this has nothing to do with it clogging up.

If paint is clogging up, it's one of three reasons:

1. The paint is too thick. This is the most common; and remember, if you're using a smaller needle, you need to thin it more. Since GW paints are in pots, they tend to get thicker with age if you leave them open a lot. Try using more airbrush thinner. Second, try adding liquid drying retarder as your thinner. If the paint dries too quickly, well.. that's bad in an airbrush for obvious reasons. To avoid it drying too quickly, make sure the well has more than just a couple of drops. Remember that the smaller your needle, the thinner the paint has to be, to flow.

2. There is dried paint in the airbrush. This will always mess it up. Disassemble the whole thing, dunk the small pieces in isopropyl and use pipe cleaners to clean out all the crevices, including in the body of the airbrush. A tiny fleck of paint will mess everything up.

3. The needle is bent. Inspect the needle. Remove the crown and aircap, and pull back the needle slowly. Make sure that it's perfectly centered, and remains so as it is pulled back. Ensure that there is no hook at the end of the needle. If any of these conditions are true, you need to replace the appropriate parts.


Finally, GW paints are awful for airbrush, for two reasons (and hey, I'm the guy who loves GW paints):

First, unless you're filling up a siphon container and leaving it there, there is no reasonable way to get GW paint from a pot into an airbrush container without wasting way too much paint. If you must use GW paint on an airbrush, because of the color for instance, decant it into an eyedropper or taper nose container, and premix the correct ratio of airbrush thinner.

Second, GW paint dries relatively quickly. This is desirable for me with a brush, but it's highly undesirable in an airbrush, because it means that if I just put 3 drops in the gravity well, it will dry in a minute if I take a pause.

Try Vallejo Model Air and Game Air. It's a MUCH better solution for airbrush, and for 0.3mm+ needles, you don't need to thin it at all. There are VMA/VGA colors that are very very close to pretty much everything in the Citadel base range, and if you want it exact, a very thin brushed-on coat afterwards will do that.

What are you using to thin? If you use a thinner that is a reasonably strong solvent (like Vallejo's AB thinner) then it will tend to clog less than if you'd used something like water.

I'm going to have to disagree on Talys that GW paints are bad for airbrushing, they're fine, it's just because they're thicker than airbrush specific paints like VMA you have to spend a bit more time learning how to use them. I do most my airbrushing with GW paints because it's my most expansive range. At first I had an issue with the "base" range clogging my brush, but that went away when I swapped from Humbrol thinner to Vallejo thinner and got a better grasp on the correct viscosity.

First, unless you're filling up a siphon container and leaving it there, there is no reasonable way to get GW paint from a pot into an airbrush container without wasting way too much paint. If you must use GW paint on an airbrush, because of the color for instance, decant it into an eyedropper or taper nose container, and premix the correct ratio of airbrush thinner.

I just use an old brush, it's not as convenient as a dropper bottle but nor does it waste any paint. I use a brush to stir the paint in the cup either way though (I can't tell the right consistency just from looking at it).

Second, GW paint dries relatively quickly. This is desirable for me with a brush, but it's highly undesirable in an airbrush, because it means that if I just put 3 drops in the gravity well, it will dry in a minute if I take a pause.

VMA paints actually dry faster than GW paints. At least in my experience. I haven't had any problems with GW paint drying too fast though. I always place a few drops of thinner in to the airbrush before I put the paint in, regardless of what paint I'm using. You can use some drying retarder but I've been moving away from drying retarder the better I get at airbrushing, the only time I use it now is if it's a really really hot and dry day which can cause the paint to dry freakishly fast. If you extend the drying time too much you have to wait longer between passes and increase the risk of pooling (though this can be good if you're spraying a wash and want it to settle in the crevices instead of drying on the high spots).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
What are you using to thin? If you use a thinner that is a reasonably strong solvent (like Vallejo's AB thinner) then it will tend to clog less than if you'd used something like water.

I'm going to have to disagree on Talys that GW paints are bad for airbrushing, they're fine, it's just because they're thicker than airbrush specific paints like VMA you have to spend a bit more time learning how to use them. I do most my airbrushing with GW paints because it's my most expansive range. At first I had an issue with the "base" range clogging my brush, but that went away when I swapped from Humbrol thinner to Vallejo thinner and got a better grasp on the correct viscosity.

I agree with you. I use Citadel, VMC and Minitaire. I thin all of them with a different ratio with the same thinning solution and works fine. I had the same issue with the "base" range when I basecoated a friend's Dark Angel vehicule. Friggin Dark Angel green was pretty thick and hard to work with at first.

Lower the psi, and make sure the paint is thinned. Between uses you'll come to realise that often times you will sometimes have to dis and re assemble the blasted thing many times before it works. Make sure all the parts are cleaned also. I just use the thinners same as for the paint itself.

How do you guys get Citadel paints into the airbrush? If I use an eyedropper or pipette, more of it gets left on the tool than that goes into the airbrush. And then, I have one more thing to clean (the dropper/pipette). It just drives me nuts. The only way that was acceptable for me was to transfer some into a dropper bottle and prethin it.

By the way, Vallejo Model Air paints vs Citadel drying time -- just put a little dot of it, unthinned, onto a very fine detail brush, and see how quickly it dries. The Citadel dries in way, way less time. In fact, I cheat when I do fine detail writing (of text) on my miniatures -- I just use model air colors on a 6/0 brush, and it gives me plenty of time to "write".

thanks for all the help guys!!! I just want to be able to basecoat all my stuff very fast!!!!!

for my thinner i have just been using Windex (glass cleaner) in order to thin down my paints

I spray a full spray and a half into the paint reciprocal of the airbrush and add a decent amount of paint in there and mix it around until its a milky like consistency

yekram10 wrote:
thanks for all the help guys!!! I just want to be able to basecoat all my stuff very fast!!!!!

for my thinner i have just been using Windex (glass cleaner) in order to thin down my paints

I spray a full spray and a half into the paint reciprocal of the airbrush and add a decent amount of paint in there and mix it around until its a milky like consistency

My suggestion if you're basecoating enough is to mix it into a dropper bottle or a siphon jar. That way your whole batch is consistent, and you don't waste paint in a brush that you use to stir it up in a brush well. I have not tried Windex before, so I'm afraid I can't offer any advice as to ratio.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just recalled something while I was cleaning up my airbrushes today:

I once had two identical airbrushes (Paasche Talons), both in excellent condition and maintenance, yet one was seemingly inconsistent, and gave me sputter output while the other was flawless.

My setup is a bit complex: I have a 6-way manifold; 3 are regulated at 18 psi, 2 are regulated at 25 psi, and 1 is unregulated (max PSI, for cleaning). This is so that my airbrushes, which are on quickconnect, can have whatever PSI I need without dialing regulators.

I listened to every single connection for a leak (everything is meticulously taped or sealed with O-rings), and could find none. I took everything apart, and simplified it and still, the same thing. I switched needles, heads, aircaps... every piece in the body, and still it would not work, after more than an hour of testing.

FINALLY... just as I was about to give up and toss the airbrush body I noticed it: the O-Ring between the body and the air cap had fallen out! So, what would happen is that when no air was flowing, there was no leak. However, when I was USING the airbrush, a small and inconsistent amount of air would leak through the space between the air cap and the body -- which is impossible to feel or hear, but enough to mess things up.

Anyhow... I believe the only O-Ring that could have resulted in this symptom was the front (the others should cause a hiss and lost air causing the compressor to refill the tank). However, check your airbrush for any missing O-Rings. Basically, where any two metal pieces screw together, there should be an O-Ring. If there isn't, it probably fell out at some point. The only O-Ring that isn't critical is the one that holds the back cap to the chassis.

Talys wrote:
How do you guys get Citadel paints into the airbrush? If I use an eyedropper or pipette, more of it gets left on the tool than that goes into the airbrush. And then, I have one more thing to clean (the dropper/pipette). It just drives me nuts. The only way that was acceptable for me was to transfer some into a dropper bottle and prethin it.

As I said, an old brush. I have a random #2 brush with the tip cut off that I use as a tool for mixing and transferring paint around. Put a few drops of thinner in airbrush, open the citadel pot, dip in brush, roll against side of airbrush cup, repeat until satisfied, use the brush to mix it in with the thinner. Each brush-load is probably about 1 drop with of paint or more if you really load it up. It's an old brush so I don't care if it covers the ferrule.

I use the same brush when hairy brush painting to mix paints because I don't like getting paint up around the ferrule of my good brushes. It's faster just to use the old crappy brush to mix the paint then throw it in the water before I start painting with a good brush than it is to use a good brush and then clean off the good brush to make sure no paint is around the ferrule.

By the way, Vallejo Model Air paints vs Citadel drying time -- just put a little dot of it, unthinned, onto a very fine detail brush, and see how quickly it dries. The Citadel dries in way, way less time. In fact, I cheat when I do fine detail writing (of text) on my miniatures -- I just use model air colors on a 6/0 brush, and it gives me plenty of time to "write".

I don't know what to say, I hairy brush paint with VMA colours all the time and I find they dry rather fast. Maybe unthinned the citadel ones dry faster simply because they have less fluid in them? I always thin my paint as soon as it leaves the pot, and by the time I get my citadel paint to the same consistency as I get the VMA paint for either airbrushing or hairy brush painting, I notice the VMA paint dries faster. But that said, it's not a huge difference, the only paints that dry absurdly fast are my alcohol based Gunze paints.

If you are dropping unthinned paint in to your airbrush I can see how that might be a problem as the thicker citadel paint is more likely to clog up around the needle, but I always put at least a drop or 2 of thinner in my cup before any paint to make sure that doesn't happen regardless of what paint I'm using.

To the OP: As others have mentioned, I think the problem is your PSI is too high. If you're spraying thin enough that you can spray at below 25psi, try that and see if it stops your clogging. I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I have read if you are pushing very high pressures you can be causing the paint to dry on the needle faster and end up clogging the brush faster. If you aren't spraying thin enough that you can spray at 25psi the paint is probably just too thick.

Also if you aren't already doing it, make sure you're cleaning out the nozzle and passages, if you aren't cleaning them properly then paint from previous sessions may still be in there causing it to clog more easily.

I don't Airbrush (yet) mostly because I did a test run with a friends and it failed miserably. I had the paints thinned to almost pure water too. I only saw this mentioned once but paint has a minimum needle size. I believe Vallejo recommends at least a 0.2mm needle, a number of air brushes go smaller. Check that too, it might help.