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Hi there!
I finally got my ultrasonic cleaner( cheap stuff from china) and I am tryn to clean my 2 bad injured airbrush:
Cheap stuff from the local store
Neo Iwata.

Now,the neo Iwata have been sitting ,cleaned so and so, for a while on my desk,being my second airbrush received an hard beating.
My cheap airbrush have been on the shelf for less time,a couple of weeks,but I left it all together with some primer (vallejo) dying and drying inside it.
I'm running my third 10 minutes wash at 50w ATM with 50% Windex 50% water solution.
The only problem is that the encrusted paint is not coming off the noozle and the cup.
Is the cleaner fuxked up or is just messed up beyond repair?
I wonder more for the Neo Iwata than the cheap stuff.
Here are some pics




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I just tried with a silver armband and the solution was black afterwards... Can it seriously possible to feth up an airbrush with old paint so bad...!?

Use isopropyl alcohol instead of windex.

Also, those ultrasonics that only do 10 minute cycles aren't really going to cut it - you need ones that can do bigger cycles (still cheap chinese ones)

If using Isopropyl make sure to remove the rubble seals (if any).

Also I have had great success on the mother of all dried paints in an airbrush..... Artist's Inks. I am a firefighter/paramedic and was working on a model and had the tones drop. Came back the next day and realized that the ink had been left in the brush.

I put it in my sonic cleaner with 100% Simple Green and after two cycles was able to clean it all out.

Yes, simple green or purple power. Avoid putting anything flammable into an ultrasonic!!! Between the ultrasonic itself and the heating action this can cause a flammable substance such as alcohol or acetone can cause rapid evaporation and you risk a rather nasty flash fire if it reaches ignition point.

commissarbob wrote:
Yes, simple green or purple power. Avoid putting anything flammable into an ultrasonic!!! Between the ultrasonic itself and the heating action this can cause a flammable substance such as alcohol or acetone can cause rapid evaporation and you risk a rather nasty flash fire if it reaches ignition point.

Yep,considerig this cleaner have no basket to keep the objects from the bottom,maybe I'll avoid isopropyl...
Simple green used pure or diluted 50-50 water?


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kb_lock wrote:
Use isopropyl alcohol instead of windex.

Also, those ultrasonics that only do 10 minute cycles aren't really going to cut it - you need ones that can do bigger cycles (still cheap chinese ones)

You use ISO pure?

Mine can do up to half hr,I just didn't thought one long cicle is better than many short


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 darefsky (Flight Medic Paints) wrote:
If using Isopropyl make sure to remove the rubble seals (if any).

Also I have had great success on the mother of all dried paints in an airbrush..... Artist's Inks. I am a firefighter/paramedic and was working on a model and had the tones drop. Came back the next day and realized that the ink had been left in the brush.

I put it in my sonic cleaner with 100% Simple Green and after two cycles was able to clean it all out.

Here in Sweden maybe the simple green might be different? I will check the composition and let you know.
However a cycle is 10 minutes for you?

Yes i use pure iso, i also have it fully covered, it isn't possible otherwise.

Just to chime in, I have one of those wee ultrasonic cleaners, and a "real" one (a so-called industrial unit, but it's only 3L). On paper they look really similar except for the cycle time (one is 9 minutes max, the other 99), and the fact that the industrial one has a heat option.

But when you turn it on, lemme tell you they are nothing like each other. The big one you can hear across the house; the little one sounds like a cell phone on vibrate. The industrial one is much more effective, too.

HOWEVER --

When I get my airbrush really messed up, almost universally because I'm trying to airbrush metallics, OR because I didn't thin my non-airbrush paint enough and it gets stuck in the nozzle, an ultrasonic cleaner doesn't do anything for me. Or at least I haven't tried long enough for it to work. Maybe if I did a 60 minute cycle, who knows.

It's much faster simply to take the airbrush apart and actually clean out all the pieces really well using traditional tools, like a scraper, pipecleaners, and all that. And then when you're all done, just leave the pieces in isopropyl for a day or so!

It's much less aggravating than using an ultrasonic cleaner, then testing it and finding that it is better, but not quite 100%. Or at least, that's my experience.