Tech Tip: Clearing a Plugged Airbrush
By Michael Benolkin
When you're cleaning your airbrush, you have your usual go-to fluids for the job. For me, paint thinner for enamels, Windex w/Ammonia for acrylics, lacquer thinner for lacquers, and mineral spirits for oil washes usually do the trick. Once in awhile, I'll find a problem that doesn't want to clear out of the airbrush, usually because I applied the paint without sufficient thinning.
Regardless of what is fouling the airbrush, lacquer thinner usually works on dried enamels, acrylics and oils. I rarely have a problem with lacquers fouling the airbrush, but if I do, or if the lacquer thinner isn't working on whatever is fouling your airbrush, you have the nuclear option - MEK.
Methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) cleans just about anything but like lacquer and paint thinner (and odorless mineral spirits), MEK should be used with lots of ventilation as it will evaporate more quickly than the other solvents. Like lacquer thinner and odorless mineral spirits, MEK is available in good-sized containers for about the same price as a small bottle of hobby paint at any good hardware store.
NOTE: DO NOT USE MEK on plastics as it will melt plastic (if I recall correctly, Tenax 7, which is a 'hot' plastic cement, is essentially MEK). I would not use MEK on Aztek or other plastic airbrushes for the same reason. Also be careful as MEK is flammable (as is paint thinner, many cements, and other fluids around your bench).
So how did I come to know that MEK is a great paint remover? We had 55 gallon drums of the stuff around a B-17G we were stripping of paint at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson many years ago. We'd dip rags and brushes in the stuff and scrub decades of paint off that aircraft's skin with relatively little effort. If you've visited the Pima Air and Space Museum, you've seen our work with the 'I'll Be Around' on display inside the 390th Bomb Group (H) building.
Now go build something!