A Lesson (re)-learned

[rickoshea52]

I have been struggling with my Iwata HP Eclipse CS airbrush for a couple of weeks now, regular clogging up and poor spraying, usually with primer and varnish, particularly Vallejo gloss. At first I thought it to do with thinning ratios but this didn't fully cure my problem, I thought it might be the nozzle size -.35, then I noticed that occasionally the cone of the spray wasn't a full cone shape.


I called in at SNFStuff today to pick up some more varnish and spend my Christmas money on Mig's encyclopaedia volume 3 for aircraft detailing (very good by the way) and got talking to the staff about my airbrush problems which I had taken in with me. After some tinkering, cleaning and good advice it seems that this type of airbrush has a floating nozzle which had become partially stuck on its seat and prevented full flow of air around it that creates the cone shaped spray.


When I got it home I gave it a clean and discovered that the nozzle does in fact come away from the body of the brush and it was bogging! Check the pictures.


I'll run some varnish through it tonight but with cleaner the spray cone looks normal.


I thought this may be of use to some of you in future.

[stona]

That's nicely demonstrated. I have one of these brushes myself and rarely unscrew the nozzle head from the rest of the nozzle body. The entire nozzle assembly (as seen in your bottom, gungy, picture) is simple to remove. Sometimes it might require a gentle push to the side to free it up. On the rare occasions when I give the brush a really good deep clean I chuck it in a bath of cellulose thinners for a few minutes and then clean it with a fine inter-dental brush.


BTW if you split or damage your nozzle (yes, I've done that) Iwata will send that entire assembly as a replacement part, about twenty quid I think. I also recently discovered that they have changed the thread in that brass part so that an old nozzle will no longer fit into it.


Cheers


Steve

[rickoshea52]

That's nicely demonstrated. I have one of these brushes myself and rarely unscrew the nozzle head from the rest of the nozzle body. The entire nozzle assembly (as seen in your bottom, gungy, picture) is simple to remove. Sometimes it might require a gentle push to the side to free it up. On the rare occasions when I give the brush a really good deep clean I chuck it in a bath of cellulose thinners for a few minutes and then clean it with a fine inter-dental brush.
BTW if you split or damage your nozzle (yes, I've done that) Iwata will send that entire assembly as a replacement part, about twenty quid I think. I also recently discovered that they have changed the thread in that brass part so that an old nozzle will no longer fit into it.


Cheers


Steve

Replacement nozzles were just over £20 in SNMstuff and I'm sure SMS will do them too. Incidentally Iwata do a small wrench for removing the nozzle point too.