I've never used an airbrush before and bought a Badger 150. I hooked it up to the compressor and i'm getting air flow out of the nozzle but for some reason it's not shooting out paint. No idea what's going on, I followed the directions in the manual. Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

It could be a blockage in the line. You will probably have to take it apart and check to see that everything is clear. Also, what paint and air pressure are you using? Paint could be too thick.

I had (have) a 150 since 1975. There were times that it befuddled me and none of my tricks fixed it; it just started working again. However, the main cause of what you describe can be remedied by:

1. Paint too thick -- needs to be consistency of skim milk.

2. Blockage in the tube -- if you have a garden hose with a gun-nozzle, the pipe that you attach the tube to inside the jar top is well matched to the nozzle, and you can blast water through to break out clogs. Also, make sure the little 'breather hole' in the lid is not blocked.

3. You may have to remove the spray head and clean the head and tip, then re-seat the nylon O-ring; I recall that if you really torque down on the spray head assembly too tight, that keeps paint from spraying.

Let us know how things are working.

Thanks for the help guys. I believe it was because the paint was too thick. I ran some water through it and with the water and the thinner paint I still had to pull the trigger all the way back to get anything to come out. Do these things take a bit to get going before you can get just a little paint to come out when you pull the trigger back just a little?

Hi Jayce!

It sounds like you still haven't thinned your paint enough if the paint won't come out until you have the trigger pull completely back. As Frederick said the consistency of the paint is suppose to be like condensed milk for the paint to flow properly so you will probably want to thin your paint more.

Personally i have used Humbrol, Gunze and Tamiya acrylics. For humbrol the ratio i use is about 50/50 for gunze and tamiya about 70/30 of paint and thinner respectively. Lastly I would also recommend that you use the company’s own thinner. It probably is a little pricier but I have found that when airbrushing the choeic of thinner can be difference between a disaster and a perfect result. I guess that the paint won’t atomize properly with the wrong thinner.

Good luck and let us know how it works out

Jakob

Test with water first! Its cheap and does not make stains