Heat Drying

[dbt]

Making my first lure. See where everyone talks of heat curing createx paint. Whats the best way to do so? I have my first, poorly painted, lure hanging in front of my wood heater. Blower is on and lure is twirling from a string. Is this ok, enough, too much? Lemme hear your thoughts. And hoe long until it is heat cured?

[gone2long]

When you here about heat setting in tackle making it really means your using a heat source (blow dryer or heat gun) to set the paint for your next coat or application. The other side of the coin is heat setting is required when doing T-Shirts and is as much a chemical reaction as it is a drying technique. Caution is required when heat setting to prevent causing glues and other adhesives from breaking down on 2 piece lure blanks.

[dbt]

So does that mean that it is not necessary to heat dry unles you are trying to speed the painting process?

[gone2long]

Well if you go to the Createx site and look under the technical tab click on the application guide it suggests a temperature of around 300 degrees F to physically set the paint I think if you tried that you would have a plastic blob on your hands. But it's a good idea to apply heat regardless to ensure that it's not skinned over kinda like latex paint will do so there's a fine line between heat setting and cooking

[dbt]

Thank you for the info. You are a scholar and a gentleman

[gone2long]

Yep found out the hard way I was applying heat to one of my cheap knockoff practice baits and watched the glue ooze out from the seam

[RayburnGuy]

The Createx application guide also says to heat the paint until it is warm to the touch. This is for those applications that an iron or shirt press aren't suitable. Createx is first and foremost a paint designed to be used on t-shirts. "Heat setting" the paint causes the paint to cross link on molecular level so it becomes waterproof and the paint job on the t-shirt can be washed without obliterating the said paint job.

 

As far as painting lures I don't think the paint has to be "heat set" since we use top coats to protect the paint from water intrusion. For our use drying the paint is mainly to make sure the paint doesn't skim over leaving wet paint under the surface. And it speeds up the painting process as well.

 

Ben

[dbt]

Thanks Ben, that makes more sense than a paint needing heat. Im a gc and work with a lot of paints. Never heard of one needing heat to cure properly, but dont work with these types of paint. Mostly house paint. Really struggling with the airbrush. Barely puts out any paint. Use to a airless sprayer for houses. They put out a ton of paint quick like. Hope I can figure this out, seems like a great hobbie, given my background and love for fishing. Also my dislike for fishing lure prices.

[RayburnGuy]

No doubt you can figure it out. Just keep trying different things until you find something that works for you DBT. There's no "one way" to do all this stuff. Everybody develops their own procedures and what is easy and works best for them. If you run into trouble with anything just holler and somebody will do their best to help.

 

good luck,

Ben

[Richard Prager]

@DBT.....you shouldn't have a problem spraying the paint. What brush, paint, etc are you using.....are you backwashing after color changes? Your airbrush should have a nice spray of water with the needle removed as well as in place and ready for paint. I pull my needle out after each color. and wipe it with real fine sandpaper or fine steel wool. Shoot some water, put the needle back in and shoot the rest. It only takes a few seconds and i only have to soak my nozzle, etc. once every six months. You can't have any dry paint on the needle or nozzle. Hope this helps and this is what I find works best for me. I only use Auto Air,, Createx, Polytranspar and Wildlife, all water base

[dbt]

Using a master g233. Createx opaque color. .5 mm needle. 50 psi. Tried 40 as recommended but couldn't get good paint spray so turned it up. Have to cut paint 30-50% to get spray at all. It doesn't seem right to me after watching who knows how many airbrush vidios on YouTube. I guess I just need to keep fiddling with it until I figure out what works in my situation. Today is the first time I got the garage up to about 75 for an extended period. Once the paint warmed up it performed better but still not as expected. Not much flow. Have to pause to get coverage.

[Richard Prager]

Is that a siphon feed? That's a pretty big tip...something's not right. Sounds like you have a bunch of dried paint in there, bent needle, etc.

[dbt]

Gravity feed. Brand new gun. Only sprayed test boards and 1 lure. Seems like an equipment problem to me. Can't be my fault.

[saltshaker]

No way you should need 40-50 psi. In fact....you'd do just as well with that airless.  If you thinned your paint 50% and it still won't spray at less than 40 psi...you either got a damaged or dirty gun. Trust me.

[dbt]

Afraid of that. Guess I'll order a new gun and try again

[RAswimmers]

No way you should need 40-50 psi. In fact....you'd do just as well with that airless.  If you thinned your paint 50% and it still won't spray at less than 40 psi...you either got a damaged or dirty gun. Trust me.

I second this but I have had to reduce some of the wicked colors like silver and opaque white by as much as 100% to get it through my Iwata eclipse @ 20-25 psi. I've also noticed a big difference in the reducer, I switched from the w100 reducer to the wicked high performance w500 reducer and the paint flows really smooth and dries within seconds if not sprayed too heavy. 

[RayburnGuy]

Before you buy a new airbrush you should make sure you don't have any dried paint in the nozzle. Buy a bottle of Createx Airbrush Restorer . Pull the needle out of the airbrush and make sure it's clean. Pour some of the Airbrush Restorer into a small jar that the front of the airbrush will fit into. You don't need to soak the whole airbrush. Just put enough restorer in the jar that it will cover the airbrush up to the bowl. This is assuming it's a gravity fed airbrush. If it's a siphon fed brush it needs to cover the tube the siphon jar plugs into. Leave it soaking for at least a few hours. Preferably overnight. The restorer will loosen any dried paint so you can clean it out. You need to be careful not to use anything to clean the nozzle that will leave scratched inside. Any scratches will just be a place where paint wants to hang up and eventually end up being more dried paint inside the nozzle. Things like cotton ear swabs can cause problems as well because they can leave behind tiny cotton fibers. Mix those fibers with some dried paint and they become even harder to get out. A stiff piece of heavy monofilament makes a pretty good tool for getting paint out. It won't scratch the nozzle and it's flexible.

 

There are several threads in the archives about cleaning an airbrush and keeping it clean. A clean brush is a happy brush. Develop a thorough cleaning process and stick to it. It's much, much easier to keep a brush clean than it is to let it go and have to deal with with that set of problems.

 

Even if your still having trouble with the way your airbrush is spraying there's still no need to buy a new airbrush. The only thing you might need to buy is a nozzle. The needle can be pulled out and visually checked to see if it's dirty or bent. If the tip of the needle is bent you might possibly be able to straighten it depending how bad it's bent and how comfortable you are at straightening it and possibly putting a new point on it. At the very worst you should only have to purchase a new nozzle/needle combo. That's still cheaper than buying a new airbrush.

 

good luck,

 

Ben

Edited December 29, 2013 by RayburnGuy

[saltshaker]

I couldn't tell you how many times I've bought new guns when, as it turned out, the one I had wouldn't function properly simply because it was clogged with paint. I, too, am a retired commercial painting contractor and I guess I still got that gasoline airless mentality when it comes to cleaning equipment. If I were you, before I purchased another gun, I'd double check and make sure it's spotless. That is a small hole and it doesn't take much to clog it. Then, inspect your needle/nozzle for damage before trashing it. Read up on the cleaning info posted here. These guys know the game. Unfortunately, I can't help you with that.   

 

Good luck.

[RayburnGuy]

Just send me all your airbrushes that aren't working Stan and I'll clean 'em up and sell 'em back to you.

[dbt]

Cheap I hope

I've cut a few from tackle box devidors. Worked great.

[gone2long]

Master AB's are cheap knockoff's, that being said some work and some are junk it's a crap shoot getting one that works good all the time and with different media. If you get a new brush get as much quality as you can afford and a brand that backs their product and has parts readily available like Iwata, Badger or Paasche to name a few. When "heat setting" your paint between coats your not heat setting as much as your are drying the coat of paint, if you apply too much heat that is when you will run the risk of skinning over causing the paint to take a long time to cure, also realize that when painting a lure your laying down a film of paint in most cases where as a T-Shirt your not, air is permitted to flow through the shirt thus drying it from all sides. I now also use high performance reducer and it works great for reducing and setting of the paint quickly.

[BobP]

Airbrushes are mechanically simple but are precision instruments and it doesn't take much of a manufacturing defect to make one not work well - a nozzle misaligned or  a little too much chrome plating somewhere, the wrong profile on a needle, etc.  If the brush is truly clean and won't spray a good pattern with a .5mm tip, unthinned Createx airbrush paint, at 30 psi, then it's definitely a problem with the airbrush and not you.  JMHO from many TU posts on Chinese manufactured airbrushes, they are more likely to suffer from factory defects.  Get a good one, it works fine and you're painting inexpensively.  Get a bad one, and you're in airbrush hell.  After doing due diligence on cleaning the brush, if it continues to perform poorly, I'd contact the vendor to see if a replacement could be arranged.

[gone2long]

Yup I agree I've spent countless hours researching what makes a good brush good and a bad brush bad and can tell you that 90% of the people who bought a cheap brush and struggled are in heaven after purchasing a quality brush I've also read that people have put the brush down in disgust never knowing it wasn't them but the brush! This site is very good on the pro's and con's:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Fdonsairbrushtips%2F&ei=VFbAUonmC6fJsQTgw4HwDA&usg=AFQjCNEj_ATl9xnuHgTW9EFHFn63Ue37cw&sig2=uGFsBZ2YkWTKS5KQlw97fA

Edited December 29, 2013 by Gon2long

[barrybait]

dbt,  If you got a diagram/instruction with your gun,  check it carefully while you disassemble, clean, and reassemble your gun.  I see where you said it is a gravity feed but the airbrush still needs to create a siphon effect to draw the paint thru the nozzle.  The airflow creates a vacuum that draws the paint from the cup.  If you are missing a gasket or one part is missing or leaking into another chamber it will destroy the ability of the airflow to develop a vacuum.  Possibly a small teflon seal may have fallen out or a small o-ring is bad and you didn't notice.  Some use beeswax to seal some threads.  Once it's right, test spray with water and low pressure, 5-10psi should be fine.  Someone just posted a link to a guy that tested all types of airbrushes and shows diagrams of all this. Good luck and don't get flustered, we've all been thru this at some level I think.

 

Back to original topic, I have been under the impression that I must heat dry the Createx paint.  We may want to ask Createx about this since we are not applying to textiles.  Maybe the above...that it is done so that textiles could be washed might be all there is to it.  However, I feel that my paint must be fully cured to achieve maximum strength.  A chain is only as strong as its weakest link so if my primer is attached to the plastic, and my color coat is only attached(bonded) to the primer, then my next color is only bonded to my previous color....you get the idea.  Now I apply my top protective/waterproof coat over the top of multiple layers, then how strongly is my top protective coat attached to the plastic?

 

I hope some of our more experienced members can shed some light on this.  In industry, coating are tested for bonding strength to pipelines, etc by glueing an exact size  circle to the finished coating and letting it dry.  The circle is connected so that you can connect a scale to it, then pull until the paint connection to the pipe fails and you wind up with a chip of paint on your circle, and a measurement on the scale.  Do the math and you get the bonding strength to the pipe in lbs per square inch.

 

Oh! I see Gon2long just posted the airbrush link above. It's perfect for this. lol

Edited December 29, 2013 by barrybait

[gone2long]

I highly recommend looking at the technical data sheets on the Createx website, we use many different types of paint Createx standard line was created for textile's but Wicked and auto air were not And most of us are using all 3 on a bait. Check the hard surface page you'll see what I mean with the heat no heat question although it may work for some the manufacturer has formulated these guideline's so you achieve the highest quality results from their product.