Mr. Color/ Airbrush issues

[Some_Kid]

So i tried some of my recently arrived paints. I sprayed some mr.color cranberry red pearl on a spare body I had. I had some pretty weird issues. First of all I used mr. color thinner, probably 50/50 or 60/40 ratio of thinner to paint.

So when I first started spraying the paint came out like a spider web, not just spatter but it actually shot red webbing it seemed, something I've never seen before. I wasn't getting much paint out of it. At this time the psi was about 25. So I adjusted my airbrush for wider spray, added a little thinner, and it didnt get much better. So I got fed up with it and put some crown lacquer thinner in the airbrush. The psi was amped up to 40 psi and I finally got some decent paint flow(barely).

However the paint job came out pretty bad for the most part, the pearl paint didn't look like it layed down well(didn't look fine), it looked like it came out of a spray can, like a bad duplicolor pearl paint spray can.

Any ideas of what the problem was? I plan on trying again in my other airbrush because I'm a little more familiar with it, both are perfectly clean though.

[MPWR]

If you're getting spiderwebs when spraying lacquers, you need to add more thinner. You shouldn't need more than about 20 psi (a good gravity airbrush will usually spray properly thinned lacquers very happily at around 15 psi).

The paint may have thickened a lot by sitting on the shelf. That's why thinning by ratio is useless- there are too many variables for it to work reliably. If the paint needs more thinner, you just add more until it sprays well. Too much is when the paint starts to pool as you spray.

[Some_Kid]

Thanks. I guess I'll try more thinner next time.

[markiii]

Hey Bro, I have been using Mr. Color about 6 months now, and I have good success thinning it at a ratio of 2 parts paint/10 parts Mr. Color Leveling thinner. Give it try, it works great !


Mark

[scalecar]

Mr. Color makes a retarder. A couple drops would help. I had run across this problem before.

[Some_Kid]

Well I've thinned the paint down some more and it seems to be better. I'm getting pretty good paint flow at the 25-30 psi range. If I thin it anymore than that it loses too much pigment and it takes to many coats to build up.