Jeff: Thanks for your advice. I'll try a few more homemade remedies since I already have those supplies lying around, but it's good to know that all will not be lost if they don't work out, though I might end up losing even more money to this hobby

Mike: I'm glad that some good came out of my frustrations...who knows, maybe I'll even end up posting about a successful spray session some day!

James: I'm about 95% sure that the AB is in correct working order. That's an interesting point about water being able to slip through smaller openings, but since proper assembly is an easy thing to spot for me, it's usually the first thing I check.

I too own Badger 100's and 250's (bad-gear as one of my bretheren call it) and an Iwata Neo. The Vallejo paints spray fine, but you need to thin at a ratio of 33% to 50% to spray really fine and feed nicely. (Auto Air german colors) get the paint right and tune with air pressure. My Badgers on the other hand perform flawlessly, are not as finnicky, and yield nice results but lines are not as fine as hoped. The Iwata has to be REALLY CLEAN to yield fine line results.
just my 2 beans worth.
Rick

Rick, is that ratio 33-50% thinner or 33-50% paint?

Hi Robby,
So water does get thru....great... Ok it is not clogged.
So maybe the paint is still too thick.

I personally would not use "Future" as a thinner....the stuff is great for
overcoats and pre decaling but combined with Vallejo as a thinner.....UMMM?
It dries rapidly and Vallejo has issues with too rapid drying anyways....combined?

I would at this point try increasing the air pressure say to 18-25 psi and see
what that gives.
My combo has been 18psi with a 1/3 to 1/2 distilled water to paint ratio and
a drop of retarder per 1/2 oz of working stock. This combo works great for
me.
Later,
Joe

James has a very good point.That happened to me about a week ago.Took me a while to figure it out but I got it.Look very carefully at the fluid needle and see if it is fully retracting when you pull the trigger back.Another sign that you have a clog is bubbles being formed in the cup when you pull the trigger.But since you have not mentioned it I assume this is not the case.Do you backflush you brush when you clean it you will be amazed at what comes out of the passages when you do.If you don't I will give you a step by step in a later post.Jeff

Jeff,

I'd be very interested in your method of back-flushing the AB. I'd appreciate it if you could post that.

Mike

Mike: Here you go.WARNING I take no responsibility for bent fluid tips,damaged air caps,or cleaning products splashed in the eyes! (ask me how I know).Make sure you wear some type of eye protection when doing this.If you are careful you should not have any problem.I do this every time I spray with my Big Boy sprayguns and works as well for my AB.After you are done spraying and you start cleaning your AB,The problem is the cleaner you use just flows through the brush,it will get most of your paint out but not all of it.By backflushing the brush you loosen most if not all of the remaining gunk.If you have ever had a truely clogged AB you may have noticed that when you pull the trigger you get bubbles in the paint cup.This is the condition we are trying to reproduce.Place your cleaner of choice in the cup,run some through,and then (this is the careful part) take a paper towel,bath towel,(make sure you hve clearence from the Boss )or any type of rag and hold it tightly against the fluid tip.Depress the trigger to start the airflow then pull the trigger all the way back,and you should get bubbles coming back through the brush and into the cup.You may have to do this 2-3 times to get a seal.Let the bubbles form for about 4-5 seconds then remove the rag and spray your cleaner for a bit.Repeat this cycle as many times as you like.I do this at the beginning of each cleaning and then again when I'm almost done so I can see through the cleaner to the inside of the cup.You will be amazed at what comes out.......One more thing,I will spray all of my cleaning fluid out of the AB until just air comes out,put it back in the holder,do some other things ,and then go back to the brush and pull the trigger once more.I bet you will find that there is just a little fluid that has moved down into the tip.If you leave it in there it will dry and could cause the fluid tip to stick.There you have it,I know it took a lot of typing to explain it but it's really not that hard to do and will go a long way in keeping your airbrush clean. Happy Holidays,Jeff..........Oh,I forgot,I allways run some water through the brush after I'm done just to make sure there is no harsh stuff left to eat things.

Back after a nice time away to collect my thoughts. Tried the Airbrush From Hell again with some of the advice I got over the forums. Thanks again, but still no joy. Here are the pictures so I can show you guys what's going on.

The left half of this shot is Vallejo thinned with rubbing alcohol. At least it adhered to the primer (reliable Testors enamel spraycan), but it looks like it sprays in GIANT flakes, which is how every Vallejo color I bought seems to dry, assuming it will spray at all and stick to the model, which is a very rare occurrence.


In the middle is Vallejo thinned with distilled water and a drop of dish soap. It sprayed okay, but as you can see, the paint is freckled pretty severely. There is absolutely NO evenness to the coats it lays down and the overspray is tremendous; as I sprayed over that little circle, the paint reached and passed the rightmost post (an air vent maybe? Sorry I don't know the complete anatomy of an AAVP ).


The leftmost spray in this shot is by far the best spray I've gotten from the Revolution, but frankly that single patch is not worth the time, money, effort, effect on my blood pressure, etc. to me. On the right is where I tried that "rocker-trigger" technique I talked about earlier. Again, an uneven coat that would take forever to sloppily cover that hatch, let alone the entire freaking model.


A quick comparison shot: in the foreground is a Yak-1B, handpainted with Testors enamels. In the middle is a BTR-70 sprayed with Testors enamels using a single-action siphon-feed Badger brush. In the back is my truly fantastic AAVP-7A1 with its abomination of a paint job using Vallejo acrylics through an Iwata Revolution. If I can find the patience to make masks for the AAVP, then I'll probably break out the Badger and spray the Toxic-Testors, otherwise I'd like to take a stab at handpainting again. Maybe Vallejo's Model Air can be handpainted, since it obviously isn't meant to be sprayed.

I imagine how frustrated you can be

I've heard that rubbing alcohol evaporate too fast so paint dries before reaching plastic surfaces and that can cause a problem like yours.

Try to spray it using distilled water as thinner. I'm sure your next to find the problem solution

Cheers

"Frustrating" doesn't even begin to describe it! I did use distilled in tonight's experiment (the second picture), but I have a feeling that it's the pigments that are too big, or at least they don't separate well enough even after a vigorous shaking/thinning/mixing. My only option is to use Vallejo's thinner...As Jeff "imatanker" shared, if products are really picky, it's best to abandon juryrigging a solution and use all one manufacturer's products exactly to their specifications.

Well let us know

Most likely Iwata AB has a nozzle so tiny that the thickest paints can create problems

I think the Revo has a .50mm fluid tip,as I was looking to buy one awhile ago.So compaired to alot of other brushes it should be a "fire hose".What I mean by that is ,it should put out alot of paint.I myself would not thin with iso.It dries to fast,and if you look closley at the paint after its thinned I bet you will see that there are VERY small bits of pigment floating around in it....By looking at your pics,I may have an answer.It looks like the paint is not being very well atomized when it comes out of the gun,and is coming out in blobs instead of a mist.There are three main causes for this.1,the paint is too thick,2,your air pressure is not high enough,or a combo of both.So reduce your paint more and boost your air pressure and see if that helps.Jeff........I will be out of town for a few days with no internet available but will chech back when I return.Good luck!

How close to the subject are you spraying from?

Are you still trying to mix inside the AB or are you mixing in a bottle and then adding to the paint cup after?

Did you break the AB down and clean it?

Ahoy Robby,
Could you check the tip of the needle on this AB and make sure it isn't bent.

Cheers
Joe

Jeff, thanks for putting the right words in my mouth! That's exactly the problem,

You also triggered my memory concerning the third picture. That spray patch that was my best one ever was done by blasting the pressure up to about 65 PSI rather than my usual 10-20 for this brush. I was under the impression that a gravity feed required significantly less pressure than a siphon, and spray my siphon brush (a Badger) around 30-40. Would anyone else spray the Revolution or a comparable brush at 65 PSI? If that's the case, so be it, but all the reading I've done seemed to point to using low pressure.

Jesse, I tried many different spray-distances on this experiment. I think that "ideal spray" I talked about above was maybe an inch from the subject. Any farther and nothing happened (though the Badger laid down a fine mist even from nearly half a foot away), any closer and the paint puddled despite the iso thinner. For this experiment, I did mix in the paint cup, and the AB has been thoroughly cleaned and inspected.

Oh and Joe, the needle is straight, no bends anywhere.

All of the efforts shown here look like too high a pressure was used, however it is also looks not to be mixed well from what I can see. I would suggest using the specified thinner and starting at 20% paint to 80% thinner and slowly increasing the paint percentage to a level that suits you best. Taking it on this way will also let you know if the paint is the issue or an undiagnosed air brush issue.

Just thought that I would add I've been using the iwata for a number of years now with no problems .ive sprayed numerous different paints through it and I've never had to thin vallagio air it's a good mix out of the bottle.i noticed you said you were spraying at 30psi which is way to high acryl should be 15 a little higher around 18 for enamels .i to Clean the cup and needle with acetone.im running a revolution cr and an iwata studio series compressor.

Robby,I think Darren is right.I really beleive it is a reduction and /or air pressure issue. One thing I would not do is mix the paint in the gun What happens when you do that is all the paint in the gun cup does not get mixed.The paint that has flowed down into the fluid passage is unreduced and still thick.You pull the trigger,the thick paint cannot flow out of the gun and you have a semi-clogged gun right from the start.Jeff

hi, i dont know how many times you've rebuilt/cleaned the airbrush but would it be worth just doing it one more time?...just to check that its all clean and assembled correctly(i'm sure it is but you never know) and that all the seals/o-rings are doing their job.

for what its worth i use vallejo model air alot of the time straight out of the bottle, the only time i thin it is in hot weather and i add a couple of drops of vallejo airbrush cleaner.

i know each airbrush reacts differently and the advice given above is good , start with a very weak mix and slowly thicken up the paint.

hope you come up with a solution to your problem.

paul