How to Clean an Air Brush

Keeping your airbrush clean will give you much better performance when using it. Consider the amount of wear and tear your airbrush goes through every time you use it, the paint that goes through the interior and the air that blows under pressure. After some time, its performance might grow increasingly sluggish without any cleaning. To keep your airbrush running well, you will have to treat it responsibly.

Things You'll Need

• Soft paper towel or soft handkerchief
• Cotton swabs
• Pipe Cleaner
• Household cleaning solution
• Plastic cup
• Ethyl acetate

Instructions

Disassembling Your Airbrush

1. Unscrew all the small pieces that you can remove from your airbrush.

2. Loosen the nut in the front of the airbrush that holds the needle together, where the nozzle was.

3. Remove the needle that goes through the body of the airbrush.

Cleaning the Small Pieces

1. Get a small cup and fill it to about 2 cm below the top with ethyl acetate.

2. Take the small parts that you removed from the airbrush (excluding the needle) and place them in the cup.

3. Allow the pieces to sit in the cup while you perform maintenance on the rest of the airbrush.

Cleaning the Needle

1. Take a cotton swab and soak it with a household cleaner and stroke it very gently and carefully along the length of the needle.

2. Wipe the needle slowly with a smooth paper towel or handkerchief.

3. Repeat the process until the needle is completely clean. If the needle is exceptionally dirty, you might have to let it sit for a while without wiping off the solution and wipe it off later.

Cleaning the Body

1. Take a pipette and fill it with a household cleaning solution, then squirt the solution into the paint cup's compartment on the top of your airbrush.

2. Take a thin pipe cleaner and dip it in ethyl acetate until it is soaked.

3. Insert the pipe cleaner through the back of the airbrush body and start scrubbing the inside gently to remove any paint residue that might lie in there.

Final Cleaning Process

1. Remove the small pieces of the airbrush from the cup of ethyl acetate you dipped them into.

2. Carefully wipe the interior of each piece with a pipe cleaner.

3. Reassemble your airbrush, doing the exact reverse of what you did to disassemble it, and try it out.

Tips & Warnings

• Be sure to know how you disassembled the airbrush. This is important so that you will know how to put it back together. Many airbrushes are assembled differently than others, so there is no uniform template displaying how all airbrushes should be assembled.

• Do not scrub any pieces too much, or else you might wear them out, especially the needle. The needle is the most delicate part of the airbrush and should be treated with the utmost care.

References

• Tech Tips: Airbrush Cleaning Pictorial