 Hi there, it's DJB, and in this video I'm going to be teaching you how to do a deep clean of your airbrush. I am in the hobby of painting model horses, and that is primarily what I use my airbrush for. I currently have two airbrushes, one of which is the Iwata Eclipse and the other is the Micron CMC+. Cleaning your airbrush is an integral part of having a successful airbrush experience. They tend to get very bogged down, and especially when using acrylic paint, the paint can clog inside of them and cause problems. If you're having any issues whatsoever regarding clogging bubbles, inconsistent sprays, your airbrush likely needs a good thorough clean. This process that I will be taking you through is what I do at the end of each project I complete. Before I let the airbrush sit, I make sure that it has been thoroughly cleaned. If you don't take care of your airbrush in this way, you're definitely going to have problems. There is definitely a learning curve to understanding how your airbrush works. Being able to take your airbrush apart is very important, so let's get started. Before I jump right into the actual cleaning process, I'm going to take you through the tools that you are required to have in order to clean your airbrush properly. The first thing I use is Media Airbrush Cleaner. This is a water-based cleaner, and this is really good for putting in your airbrush between paint coats. It doesn't work as a foolproof thorough clean. Next thing you're going to need is a cleaning pot, and this is for spraying the airbrush while you clean the paint out. It comes with these nifty handles to hold the airbrush in place, but I don't use them because they don't fit with my micron. It has a little filter in there. You can see that filter is very old, so you can switch that in with a new one, and it stores all of the dirty paint inside. I don't clean this too often. Now, one of my favorite tools to use is actually isopropyl rubbing alcohol. This is the primary fluid that I use to clean my airbrush thoroughly. It takes paint off immediately, eliminates clogs, but it really disintegrates paint, and it works really well for doing that deep clean on your airbrush. You're also going to want a pair of needle nose fine point tweezers. These are really handy to have around. The Iwata nozzle wrench is super important for taking off the nozzle on these airbrushes. This is so that you don't damage the nozzle in any way. I have wrecked multiple airbrushes not using this, so it's really important to have one of these in your studio. Another good tool to have around is a mono jet syringe. This is the 412 version, and it has a really pointy tip on it. I also like to keep a little container around to hold some of that isopropyl alcohol, and if it seals in, that's perfect, so you can just seal it up and close it off. It's a little dirty, but that's okay. It doesn't need to be super clean. I use a variety of Q-tips while cleaning the airbrush. To get into the little nooks and crannies, I use a fine tip nail tee and just a normal cotton swab. There's also these fancy airbrush cleaners, and these are really good in a sense that I use them for certain situations, but you have to be really careful. These metal pointy ones are not good because they will scratch your airbrush, and scratches can wreck your airbrush, so I don't recommend using these for anything, but I do use the brush ones occasionally. Also a good thing to have is some lube. Iwata supplies this when you buy your airbrush, but you have to be really careful with this stuff as it can cause problems as well. I also have these two wrenches that came with each of my airbrushes. I find I don't use these too much, but they're good tools if you have a sticky situation. Keeping paper towel on hand is really important to wipe down the parts. It's also good to have a variety of different kind of towels. I like using the blue shop towels from a hardware store, but I also bought these polishing cloths that work really well just to lay things down so that nothing rolls away. It's a nice soft surface to work with your airbrush. I also highly recommend keeping extra airbrush parts on hand. If anything goes wrong at any point, it's always good to have a backup. So I keep on hand my 23 millimeter nozzle for my micron, my 23 millimeter needle for my micron, and my 35 millimeter needle here for my eclipse. I recently replaced the nozzle though, so I need to get a new nozzle to have on hand. So first things first, starting with this eclipse, it will be my main demo model for this tutorial. On my airbrush, I have a quick release and that is because I use one hose between the two airbrushes. First things first, you can see that the trigger is very sticky here. So I'm pulling on it with quite a bit of force and it's stuck. And this is what happens if you leave your airbrushes out for too long and the paint solidifies inside. Starting with the back of the handle that just unscrews easily. Then this little needle nut screws off as well. And the internal support also screws out and it's quite a bit of thread there, so it takes a while to come all the way out. And when you pop it off, there's a spring inside and the needle. So the needle here you can see is a bit sticky and I'm just twisting it in between my fingers to get it out as gently as possible. You don't want to pull with too much force. The trigger support comes out and the trigger itself comes out. So that's pretty standard, but normally if you're cleaning your airbrush and it has a bunch of paint inside, you want to take the head off then the nozzle and you want to pull the needle from the front of the airbrush. This is really important to do so that you don't drag your paint into the body of the airbrush because that can cause a lot of problems. So I just take a bit of paper towel with some rubbing alcohol and I clean the needle just like this. For the nozzle, I'm going to have to take it apart with my eyewater wrench, but as you can see it's really sticky and that's because the paint has dried inside. So I just like to soak these parts in some rubbing alcohol and that just softens the paint so that they're easier to unscrew. Now when working with anything regarding the airbrush and trying to get parts out or off or unscrewed, you have to be really careful not to scratch anything. If you scratch anything inside the airbrush, the parts won't line up correctly and it will cause bubbles and weird spray to happen. So you want to be really careful not to mash anything, not to scratch anything. So never use pliers to pull on any parts of your airbrush. I made this mistake and I've mashed a couple nozzles. I've wrecked a couple nozzles. You really have to be careful and just soak things in alcohol until they come loose. Then taking the tweezers, I can just pull these parts out of the alcohol after they've soaked for a bit. A couple of minutes is usually good. And I just clean them off with a cotton swab here. The nozzle head comes loose from the nozzle after some soaking and this is the most delicate part of the airbrush that you have to be most careful about. Then I soak those parts individually once again, pull them out with tweezers, being really careful about that nozzle head. It's really easy and fragile to wreck. So running a cotton swab over that paint that's in there, you can see the orangey red color that is happening. I can also use the nozzle wrench to hold it in place while I twist some alcohol soaked paper towel on top. Using a cotton swab in the inside of the cup and in all areas of the exterior airbrush, I can clean it out. I find that the inside of the airbrush can get kind of dirty at times, but you don't really want to dunk alcohol down into the air vial. So I use my monojet syringe to just clean the front of the airbrush out. I find running the needle through here can disrupt some paint that is staying dormant inside of the airbrush. So just running the needle through it until it runs smooth and cleaning it out with more alcohol as I go and rubbing along with the q-tip. So just making sure it's thoroughly cleaned. For the air valve, this comes apart. There's no cleaning necessarily required, but I'll show you that you can take it apart by just using some tweezers here and twisting that part out. Once you get it out, a spring and a little rod will pop out. I do clean this rod up with some alcohol as well. And then we are done. To put the airbrush back together, I start with the trigger keeper. Then I insert the trigger, which is a little bit tricky sometimes. It has to fit down in that little hole. And then we put the spring back, the body screw that goes inside there, and make sure that the trigger works properly. For the front of the airbrush, we screw that nozzle head back into the nozzle using the nozzle wrench, being very careful and gentle not to wreck it. I can insert that back into the airbrush and then put the head back on. I can also put this little spray cap. And I insert the needle through the back of the airbrush until it hits its point. So it will stop and that is where you should stop. Don't try and force it any further than that. Then I can insert the nozzle nut and screw the body back on. And then you have a fully functioning airbrush that you have taken apart and put back together. To reassemble the air valve is the same thing, the rod, the spring, and then the little screw cap that goes on using your tweezers again to twist it in. This can be a little tricky, but it does work. You just have to make sure that the threads are in correctly and only tighten to a hand tight position. And then I also will reattach that quick release that I have. And then I can reattach my hose and we are good to go. If I was switching colors, obviously I would just use my airbrush hot and the airbrush cleaner. And I just swished that around with an old paintbrush as I am working and this is in between colors. So this is kind of a temporary clean, but you do want to do this deep clean every once in a while. Now for extra maintenance on the airbrush, you can add a few drops, I would say maximum two drops of superlube into the trigger hole. This stuff can cause problems in itself. I've heard of it wrecking paint jobs and wrecking the airbrush. So don't go too crazy with this stuff. So now I'm going to do a case study on my Iwata micron and this is going to be a slightly different procedural in how I normally clean my airbrush. I don't have to take the entire airbrush apart. So for my micron, you can see that that trigger is totally sticky as well. I can't push it past much more than that without having it feel like it's going to break. So just unscrewing the body of the brush, the needle nut and then the nozzle head. I can unscrew that smaller nozzle off with the nozzle wrench and the needle fits down into that wrench so that it won't get wrecked as well. And I unscrew that really gently, really carefully and then I can push that needle through and you can see it's quite sticky because it has a lot of paint build up. You can see the paint physically there on the needle. And so I'm going to push that all the way through and pull it out the front of the airbrush and I'm going to swish some alcohol down inside. I'm going to release the crown from the nozzle and the crown gets a lot of paint debris. So just soaking those parts in some alcohol using a little bit of paper towel to rub that needle clean. And then I can push that needle through the airbrush and just see it's still a little bit sticky in there. You want it to run in through smooth. So just adding alcohol and pushing that needle through until it runs totally 100% smooth. Here you can see it's much better than what it was. Sometimes I leave the airbrush actually attached to the air hose and I can spray the alcohol through the brush. That helps adding some force at times. Then I will pick the pieces out with my tweezers after they have soaked for a fair amount of time. I will clean out that crown with a nail tee and I actually use that brush to brush it out because this isn't a crazy part. It's not an integral part of the airbrush but it does get quite dirty. That brush cleans it right away. Using that nozzle wrench to hold in my little nozzle I wipe some paper towel over it and I can also run the needle through that nozzle to push any extra paint debris out. Then once it's clean I insert it back into the airbrush and screw on that little nozzle. Screw back on the nozzle head and the crown and the back of the body. Then I can clean out the surface of the airbrush as well just some paint residue that is remaining in the cup. And we have a clean functioning airbrush that's ready for the next project. Make sure you're familiar with your airbrush, how to clean your airbrush comes with understanding your airbrush. Make sure you know how to take it apart, make sure you know how to clean all of those parts and not damage the airbrush in the process. So having the right tools is really important. Making sure you don't use any metal on metal is also very important and alcohol is your best friend in this case. Thank you so much for watching. This has been DJB Studios. Happy airbrushing!