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DoubleT

Airbrushing Soft Plastics

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For starters I would like to say I am new to airbrushing but have enjoyed what little time I have tried my hand at it. I am airbrushing plastic musky baits that I hand pour. A problem that I experienced yesterday occurred when I went to spray the solvent based clear over the water based bottom coat. It looked like dust coming out of the nozzle. After doing some research, It appears that I need to add some retarder to the clear. Does the retarder also act as a thinner or does it only prolong the drying time? That brings up another question. Will a thinner only thin the clear and leave me with the problem of it drying to fast? Again, I am brand new to airbrushing and I appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks

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Have you used any kind of your own thinner with the SB Coat Clear? I would contact Bruce at LureWorks and let him know about your issue. The SB Coat should be ready to spray out of the can, unless it has set on your shelf for a while or you left the lid off for a time it should spray. The issue of dust as you call it, or cob-webbing as I refer to it means that the paint is drying to quickly, even before it hits the bait. This is to be expected with the solvent based VPI series but the SB Coat is pre-thinned. SB Coat Retarder or SB Coat Thinner will help this issue. As a possible work around you might want to open up you airbrush to move the maximum amount of paint and reduce your air pressure as low as possible. The solvent based paints work better when you push a heavy coat, not so well with feathering. Let us know what you come up with.

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Ok. Thanks. I have a Paasche double action gravity feed with a .38 mm (.015) tip. I was spraying the clear at 30 psi when I was getting the cob webbing. I got my retarder yesterday. I'm going to give Bruce a call today and run it by him. Hopefully I  will get it resolved soon. 

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Lacquer Thinner may or may not work for clean up. It will depend on what the Lacquer Thinner is composed of as the blends can vary by manufacturer. You'll have to test what you have to see if it will work. Mild solvents will work when the paint is wet for clean up like Acetone. Once it has dried it is a different story you might need to step up to something more aggressive like Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK).  It is best usually to use what the supplier recommends but those are some alternatives for clean up.

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22 hours ago, McLuvin175 said:

Lacquer Thinner may or may not work for clean up. It will depend on what the Lacquer Thinner is composed of as the blends can vary by manufacturer. You'll have to test what you have to see if it will work. Mild solvents will work when the paint is wet for clean up like Acetone. Once it has dried it is a different story you might need to step up to something more aggressive like Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK).  It is best usually to use what the supplier recommends but those are some alternatives for clean up.

 

This is useful info. I had originally planned to do all of my cleaning with the spike it thinner. 

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9 hours ago, troutcz said:

I use alcohol from .99cent store it works good and cheap.

Trout,

Are you cleaning or thinning with the alcohol?

On 2/16/2017 at 10:21 PM, Frank said:

Add just a bit of retarder and it will be fine. You are on the right track. 

I put a few drops of retarder to about a half dozen drops of clear and it was still cobwebbing. Maybe I didnt add enough retarder? Wasn't sure how much would be too much. 

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50 minutes ago, DoubleT said:

I put a few drops of retarder to about a half dozen drops of clear and it was still cobwebbing. Maybe I didnt add enough retarder? Wasn't sure how much would be too much. 

Keep adding till it goes away. I know when you start you don't want to use large amounts but when using small amounts it is hard not to over do it.  Retarder slows the drying down. Over doing it will not hurt anything at all. 

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2 minutes ago, Frank said:

Keep adding till it goes away. I know when you start you don't want to use large amounts but when using small amounts it is hard not to over do it.  Retarder slows the drying down. Over doing it will not hurt anything at all. 

Ok. I will keep adding it in small amounts till it quits cobwebbing. Should I be able to shoot it at the same pressure(30 psi) as the paint? I got a little frustrated and gave up on the clear. The other colors seem to spray fine straight out of the bottle. Thanks

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On 3/9/2017 at 6:17 AM, DoubleT said:

Trout,

Are you cleaning or thinning with the alcohol?

I put a few drops of retarder to about a half dozen drops of clear and it was still cobwebbing. Maybe I didnt add enough retarder? Wasn't sure how much would be too much. 

cleaning

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