After some hesitancy, and in the pouring rain, i trooped down to the garden shed to do some airbrushing. Its a job i had put off for a while as it was "new territory" for me - Horses! For a while now i have been noticing the excellent results Ioannis (leuthan journal) has been acheiving by airbrushing his horses and knew i had to try it out. I suppose the problem isn't really the airbrushing but getting the combination of colours right and a fine enough spray for final detailing, this was the problem as i'm setup for OD and dunkelgelb. Anyways, i got started and whilst not perfect first time round it is clearly the only way to go, subtle transitions suit horses down to a "T", definatley 100% converted. ( pics mid week).
Whilst on a reasonable high i thought i'd also try out my lastest ebay purchase, an Ultrasonic Cleaner. I diligently cleaned the airbrush as normal and quiet simply put it in the ultrasonic bath for a three minute cycle. On reopening i was surprised at the accumulation of crud that it had removed, and i thought it was clean! This will now become a regular routine as well. Recommended.
3 comments:
It was like that in the military. I thought the rifle was clean and the drill sgt always found more crud ....
I will have to look into one myself.
Hey! That's a great idea! Me and a colleague have talked much about what use we can have of a ultrasonic device - it will be extremly helpful if it can clean the airbrush! :-)
You should try an experiment, to see for yourself, firsthand:
First, find a/some suitable airbrush substitute/s for some test runs- maybe check with fellow hobbyists or on eBay for a cheap/free dirty (and likely nonfunctional) entry-level airbrush?
Next, slop the internals with a bit of paint (or even spray some through it, if it's functional, even at a low level).
And then? Why, give a try to putting it straight in the ultrasonic cleaner after only a quick surface once-over, and then, depending on the results, re-dirty it and try sticking it in without pre-cleaning at all.
One of my non-wargaming hobbies is the collector/muscle car & hot rod arena (sadly, just reading about and drooling over the cars of others these days, as I sold my beloved '67 Mercury Cougar to help fund a move from the US to France that eventually stalled due to health issues), and know more than one industry professional there who use ultrasonic cleaners to clean their disassembled, professional grade HVLP airbrushes after nothing more than a quick wipedown with shoprags, the reasoning being that the ultrasonic cleansing not only does a better job than they can, but is actually better for the airbrush, in their opinions, since there's much less handling of the needles and such.
Not sure as to the comparitive strength of their cleaners vs. high-end DeVilbiss and Iwata sprayguns/Iwata and Paasche airbrushes, and how it relates to your own ultrasonic cleaner and airbrush, but did figure it might be worth the share.
Hopefully, it's helpful in some manner!
- Monk
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