Airbrush Cleaning

I have a Passache VL airbrush. I was wondering if I could just disassemble the airbrush, i.e take the needle, nozzle, spring, etc out essentially take everything out of the main body of the airbrush and soak the main body in either lacquer thinner and or enamal thinner to make sure that the internal tube/chamber is free from other paints. To my knowledge there are no plastic/rubber parts (I need to find the expolded view of the airbrush) inside the Passach? Can some confirm this? The reason I ask is that right now I clean the chamber/tube with a pipe cleaner and sometimes there is left over fuzz from the pipe cleaner that I don't see until I'm trying sprary the 2 or 3rd wet coat on my model and all of a sudden I get a "burp" or "splat" of paint, back to the wet sand and touch up paint, real PITA.


Nick f

This is on page 3 of my Paasche VL instructions...

"It is not recommended to soak the entire airbrush shell in water or solvent. The Valve Washer - #23 can absorb the liquid causing it to swell or dry out resulting in air leakage inside the airbrush. Disassemble all parts before immersing in water or solvent".

The Valve Washer they are talking about is inside the part on the bottom of the airbrush to which you connect your air line. It is made of rubber. There is also a packing washer inside the main body which "squeezes" the needle. It is made of teflon I think. To remove either of these tiny washers is exceedingly tedious. I wouldn't recommend that you do it every time you clean - you will lose the tiny retaining nuts and springs for sure.

What I do is clean with a pipe cleaner first. Then I put some Windex or mineral spirits, or lacquer thinner (depending on whether I've been spraying acrylics, enamels, or lacquers) into an empty Tamiya acrylic paint bottle. Then I stick the airbrush, nozzle side down, into the bottle - which is just the right size to allow the front of the airbrush body to be immersed but not the parts with the washers.