How do you guys spray acylics through an airbrush. I always worked with enamel and laquer based paints and had few problems with them. My kids are starting to show intrest in the hobby so I figured we'd shoot acrylics and save them the brain damage I'm sure I've incurred. I'm shooting polly scale and thinning it with water and alchohol (windshield washer solvent) through a pasche VL. It continually clogs and the paint spits. I've shot them before and remember similar but not as drastic problems. i'm so glad I'd didn't shoot them through my Iwata because cleaning the brush and cups is a bear. Any who I'm looking for any advice or suggestions reguarding this issue. I'm working in a poorly ventilated area so I have to get this to work. Thanks so much

Ron, firstly I'm not an expert with airbrushes but I shoot Lifecolor and xtracrylic through my Iwata TR1 with mac valve with no issues. A lot of the problem can be down to the pressure setting causing the paint to dry while still in the brush or not enough to get it out.
Try adjusting the pressure on your compressor and just shoot paint till you find the sweet spot, thats basicaly what I did.

Hope thats of some help.

Get hold of a retarder,I use Liquitex available from artists suppliers,and put a drop in your paint cup. It goes a long way towards preventing the paint drying at the nozzle. After that you'll have to play around as above but I spray Xtraxcrylix at fairly low pressure through an Iwata airbrush,as low as 12psi according to my regulator(which may be a bit approximate).
Steve

Thanks all. I'll try the liquitex. As for the pressure I'll try messing with it but I was already shooting at 10psi to prevent the clogging. The paint is old and and the jar was low so maybe that had something to do with it?

sorry to be a bother but what do you use to clean acrylic paint from the airbrush and cup?

I use a product called Muc-Off which is actually made for cleaning off mountain bikes. There may be an equivalent on your side of the pond.
Steve

Hi Ron, I never really cared for the spraying qualities of Polly Scale, but always found that it sprayed best thinned with straight distilled water with a touch of retarder. While IMHO there are easier to use acrylics than P S, any acrylic will have some propensity for tip dry.

A polished needle helps somewhat, and coming from enamels, you'll just need to sacrifice some paint practicing on a scrap model (not paper, as it takes spray differently) to familiarize yourself with the different spraying characteristics. One thing you have to do is to "blast" the tip periodically (as you start to get tip dry, point the nozzle away from your project and just spray wide open for a short burst). This serves to wet the deposits that have collected on the needle tip and blow them out of the airbrush. Also, 10 p.s.i. sounds awfully low to me-it might help to slow down tip dry, but I doubt you're going to get very good atomization. Better to use more pressure and deal with the tip dry otherwise.

With any acrylic, it's important that any bare plastic surfaces are thoroughly clean before spraying to avoid adherence problems. 91% isopropyl alcohol works great for this purpose, and is cheap and easy to source. I also use it to clean the airbrush after acrylics.

I personally find Tamiya to be the most user friendly acrylics. If you can't "tame' the Polly Scale, you might want to give them a try.

HTH;

Automaton

Hi Ron, I use 'Medea Airbrush Cleaner' for between colour cleans as its designed to clean acrylic paints. At the end of the day I then use 'Premi Air Liquid Reamer Airbrush Cleaner' you can just watch as the dried paint starts to lift off of surfaces then I go over it with an old paint brush before finally washing it all off in water.

HTH

As long as you don't have any plasticy bits in the airbrush, using nail polish remover might be an idea too. Just make sure you don't let it anywhere near plastics

91% isopropyl alcohol is a good cleaner too.

for thinning though, i find the best results come from using the manufacturers thinner (the gunze and tamiya are interchangable).

gunze and tamiya acyrlics spray much better than polly-s/model master.

a retarder/flow aid does help with the latter. A cheap one is just a touch of dish soap, but more expensive, purpose made retarders do work better.

thanks all I will look into all your suggestions