Basic Airbrush Maintenance and Cleaning Q A

Many different experience levels come and visit us here at Chinook & Hobby West to talk about Airbrushing. We also get many questions regarding Airbrushes through our social medias and by email.

We carry Paasche, Iwata and Badger currently and yes, we do promote these items. We also have general information to help all Airbrush users.

The following are some of your questions and answers we have researched for you.  If you still have questions, please email us at hobbywest@shaw.ca.



Q: Why should I use SuperLube?
A: When you’re using a substance to lubricate your airbrush needle (or trigger) you run the danger of some of that substance getting into the spray and onto your project (that’s why you only need a little bit). The question is what will happen when that greasy substance reacts with your paint. SuperLube doesn’t like to react with oil-based or water-based paints – that’s why we recommend it – we know what it will do. If you use an oil-based lube it might react with your acrylic paints (it’ll mix like oil and water).
Another suggestion is Woodland Scenic Light Gear Oil.  As with any Oil, please test your airbrush on a scrap paper or project just to ensure your oil doesn't interfere with your paint work.

Q: Why do I need to lubricate the needle?
A: The needle doesn’t really need the lube rather the needle in turn lubricates a little o-ring deep in the body of the brush that prevents blowback. It’s really rather small so it doesn’t need much lube and it only needs to be lubed every now and then.

Q: Are airbrushes hard to keep clean?
A: No, it’s quite a simple task, though it might be difficult at first. Develop a regular maintenance habit of rinsing the airbrush with the appropriate cleaning agent for the material being sprayed between color changes. Thoroughly clean your airbrush at the end of the workday. Check out the appropriate cleaning guide for your brush online or come down and see us to help you find a copy.

Q: How often should I thoroughly clean my airbrush?
A: It’s easy to say that you should clean your airbrush at the end of each workday; however, you should thoroughly clean the airbrush when the inevitable buildup of dried paint begins to interfere with normal operation. For some people this is once a week, for others, it’s once a day. It should be noted that regular and timely rinsing of wet paint with the appropriate cleaner will lengthen the amount of time between thorough cleanings. In short, rinsing more means cleaning less.

Q: How do I rinse my airbrush?
A: To rinse out the airbrush, simply flush it with the appropriate paint cleaning agent – Medea Airbrush Cleaner for water-based paints and paint thinner for oil-based paints. Never immerse or soak an entire airbrush. When using flammable cleaners never flush the airbrush near an open flame or lose electrical wiring and always flush the cleaner into an appropriate container to deal with these materials.

Q: How often should I rinse my airbrush?
A: You should rinse out the airbrush generally in-between color changes, before taking a break, and at the end of the day. Here’s why – wet materials clean up easier than dry materials. Rinse it while it’s wet and you won’t have to do a thorough cleaning as often when it’s dry. Rinsing between color changes is a maybe. If you’re blending colors and working from light to dark then chances are good that you won’t have to rinse. If you need a pure color then you will have to rinse out your airbrush.

Q: When I’m thoroughly cleaning out my airbrush why should I use a solvent?
A: Solvents quickly break up the molecular bonds paint forms when it dries. We recommend acetone or lacquer thinner as solvents, but stay away from paint thinner – paint thinner, in our experience, doesn’t seem to work well cleaning airbrushes. Do not soak your airbrush in a solvent. There are parts and greases in other areas of the airbrush that don’t take kindly to it. With that said, you should generally use only as much solvent as can be held in a cotton swab or in a pipe-cleaner. WARNING: DO NOT SPRAY SOLVENTS THROUGH THE AIRBRUSH. Bad idea, here’s why.

Q: What about Medea Airbrush Cleaner? Can I use it to clean out my airbrush instead of solvent?
A: There’s a saying-”the right tool for the right job”. Medea Airbrush Cleaner is great stuff and it works really well on wet paints and materials. Paint is a suspension of pigment in an adhesive substance. When the adhesive is wet you can wash it off with soapy water-when it is dry, you need something to dissolve the molecular bonds the adhesive creates. This is where solvents such as acetone or lacquer thinner come into play.

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Opportunity strikes and confuses things!

It seems I will be acquiring some pre-built bench work modules and backdrops from the old Cat Mountain and Santa Fe via Mike Barrett of Black Bear Construction Co. that he won't be able to use for his own layout. I've got a bench work plan, and the modules I will receive account for about half of the modules needed. That is significant. There may even be some legs involved.

So, I scanned and pieced together a hand drawn (and latest) version of the Erie/Hoboken Shore portion of the PoNY from 2010. The HBS is the original impetus for being interested in the New York Harbor area, and it may be moved up a bit in the build schedule. I have been putting off because of possible moves and the largeness of the project, but the module jump start may change things.

The plan (click on for a larger view) does a couple of nice things that I enjoy very much. First, the track for the HBS is a very faithful representation of the prototype almost to scale. Every industry, spur, switch, spot, etc. appears. (I just noticed the Continental Baking label is out of place - it should be opposite of the Propeller Co.) This is the attraction to shortline railroads - the fact that you can model the whole thing. This is the same attraction the pocket terminals have to me as they are essentially the shortest of all shortlines in a sense. I'm a big picture, systems type of guy, so having the entirety of something allows me to see how all of the parts work together. 

The other nice bit of faithful reproduction this affords is that the twists and turns of the bench work follow the actual turns of the prototype track arrangements pretty well. The HBS Yard was positioned around a corner and there is a sweeping curve around Stevens Institute where the East Asiatic Co was located. Bethlehem Steel works out pretty slick, too, being that its track arrangement can be featured at the end of an aisle pretty close to how it was, too. The only sticky parts are the piers and how to accommodate them without cutting off the aisles.

Operating would entail from 1-8ish people when fully built. Croxton would keep 2 Erie yard goats and a yard master busy, 1 Erie yard master at Weehawken, 1 Erie transfer and main line engineer, then up to 3 HBS employees: 1 in the yard and two engineers.That is about as large a crew that is easily manageable anyway, and is another positive aspect of the plan.

I would also like to make the two aisles moveable for work or guest purposes. Casters may be enough, or maybe some of the modules will come apart for storage under the rest of the layout. Things get complicated quickly when they have to move.

I need to render the plan in a computer track planning application to assure it will actually work, but I am fairly confident that it is just a matter of nudging things one way or the other at this point to get it to work as I envision it at this point.

So what does this bit of fortune do for the PoNY build schedule? It may, indeed push up the HBS on the list. I would start with the Weehawken Yard and then do the HBS before getting to Croxton Yard maybe much later. There are some details to be worked out all over with the track placements, but it is for the most part ready to start. At the very least, I should install the acquired modules instead of just stacking them in a corner. (I could always use the extra work surface.)

Outside factors will probably determine if this or another pocket terminal sees the most attention in the near future. I've got some real world projects that may or may not allow me some good working time the rest of the summer.

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Charity Event and Grand Opening! Fun and Surprises!

Come celebrate with us!

October 15^th 2011 9:30 am – 5:30 pm

It’s our 39^th Anniversary of Chinook & Hobby West

AND Our GRAND OPENING of our North Location

                     Supporting The Calgary Food Bank & The Make-A-Wish Southern Alberta

v  50% off Red Tag Merchandise (Oct 15^th & 16^th only – Discount with donation)

v  25% off Regular Priced Merchandise (Oct 15^th & 16^th – Discount with donation only)

v  Free BBQ Sponsored by M &M Meat Shops

v  Live Action Star Wars Characters from the 501^st & Rebel Alliance

v  Get a keepsake photograph with your favorite character (with donation)

v  Surprises for kids and adults (October 15^th only)

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Ephemera and Photos

Bethlehem Steel workers strike, 6 June 1947, Hoboken, NJ.

Work on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I believe information is worthless unless it gets used, so as a matter of principle, I try to post any ephemera I acquire, and I do it in the spirit of the Creative Commons Copyright to share information freely for non-commercial endeavors. So, feel free to use anything I post with a courtesy credit as long as it is not for commercial endeavors. Its just the right thing to do, and I endeavor to be diligent in return.


These latest bits of visual information are a grab bag to catch up.

Bethlehem Steel workers strike (reverse), 6 June 1947, Hoboken, NJ.

Erie bad order card

Erie bad order card (reverse)

Erie Railroad NY Division & Side Lines schematic (no date)

A seat card from 1956 announcing the change of stations to the Lackawanna's Hoboken Terminal. The two railroads would merge four years later.

Inside a Seatrain Lines ship showing the multiple levels of storage in this stage of the evolution to containerized shipping.

A cut away view of the operation that was published in Popular Mechanics Magazine (http://books.google.com/books?id=0N4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA122#v=onepage&q&f=true). this would be amazing to model!

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Progress on the layout corn syrup facility and woodchip facility buildings

Some progress this week on the layout!  I'm going to focus on mainly the layout the next couple of weeks to try and finish at least the corn syrup facility.  The last two days has consisted of mocking up the corn syrup facilty I had formerly named Valley Sweeteners.  After consulting with my good friend Greg McComas (His Michigan Interstate Railroad) he suggested I change the name to Chesapeake Valley Confectioners (CVC).  This would allow more than just tank cars.  Pneumatic hoppers could also be unloaded.  The facility features one track that goes into an unloading building.  This building could unload various cars such as hoppers and tank cars.  The building can hold two cars.  I was considering adding another track but Battlefield Yard is under capacity now and adding more cars would not help.

My first version of the building.  A combination of Walthers Washington Salvage Yard and Pikestuff walls.  The office building will be cut down to be back from the tracks. 

One of the pressureaid hoppers that can carry loads for the facility.  Already had it weathered and ready to go!

Version #2: Added in another wall with a truck door.  This will be my final mockup.  

Over on the Mine Run Spur, Mine Run Limber is getting some work.  I have the woodchip loader ready to go but wanted a bulding to have the chips coming from.  Thinking about having a inside loading spot?

The spot could have a removable cartridge for one boxcar.  Or I could just put the door on the building and leave it.  What do you guys think?  I find it odd( but not too far fetched) to have the spur go under the chip loader to the building.  Locomotives would never go under it.  The facility would always have enough cars to reach the building.  

Overall view of the facility.  The Apache chip hopper will be patched.  I have 3 of these.  

A little garage I have been working on.  It's from BEST.  Just need the doors and window attached and some weathering.  Even got some shingles for it.   

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Happy Fourth of July and update on trackwork and motive power

Wanted wish everyone a happy 4th!  Be safe this holiday weekend!  I've been pretty busy on the layout this week and even today, as we aren't doing much except a cookout and checking out the fireworks display in town.  This is also my 150th post on the blog!

  Here's some projects I've worked on this week:

Mine Run Branch:
Trackwork is complete but still need to add several feeder wires

View looking north.  The entrance to the scene is in the upper right corner.  Track splits into a double track.  The spur on the left is the wood chip loader.  The track also crosses a river.

Looking the opposite direction.  The track goes back to one and the spur to the sand mine is on the left.  

The spur to the sand mine.  The mine is not featured on the layout.  The main reason for the rearrangement is to allow for longer trains.

The bridge over the canal/river had to be widened.  This canal will be filled with trees and a weeds.  It will also have where the canal sides have given way to time.

Another view of the bridge.

New motive power is also in the works:

This is new power for the Virginia Midland: an Atlas GP40W that will have Tsunami sound.  It's been detailed now time for some green and gray paint.

This is new Virginia Central power: Proto 2000 SW1200.  She will be painted yellow and will not have sound at this time.

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Not a lot to show for and now N scale

This Fall has been quite busy for me and the modeling and the layout has come to a standstill.  This past week I was on the run it seems everyday after work.  I squeezed a few minutes of decaling out this week and that's about it.  That decaling would be on my Ex-KCS SD50.  I put VMID reporting marks on it and patched the red KCS on the long hood.  I wanted to cover up the entire KCS in red but it hard to do with white trim film.  So I'm going with a faded KCS maybe with a stripe across it. This is common for short line units that I have seen. Here's a prototype: BB GP40-3  An example would be this model I did for the Buckingham Branch Railroad:

This was a loco I did for a customer back in 2011.  Based on the prototype still running in this scheme.

I went to a train show last weekend and my sons talked me into a n scale layout.  My oldest had been all over this for about a year now.  I was not sure that he was ready, but I took the plunge and bought a huge lot of Kato Uni-track and loco and a couple of cars.  This past Sunday, we build a "L" shaped layout in their room.

Simple construction and doesn't  take up much space.

Definitely got the Detroit Tiger theme going on in here!

Here the GP38-2 the boys picked out.  Good runner and right now we are sticking to DC.  It can be converted to DCC if needed.

Here are the 2 cars the boys picked out.  Nicely detailed and they run well.

The overall scene.  Got to get some fascia for the background and a few more turnouts.  Not bad for a few hours of work on Sunday afternoon.

Hear is the Ex-KCS SD50 that will be working on the Midland.  The 6 axle power is a new trend on the VMID.  A tsunami was installed in in and being a Proto 2000 loco, it runs and well and is very heavy.

Here's another 6 axle power loco.  It's a Kato mid-production run.  Picked it up at the RPM meet for a great price.  It too will be patched for the VMID.  

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Last post of 2014 and a special guest stops by

Well, 2014 is just about done.  I don't do much for New Years Eve these days, but did get to go out on a date with my wife to a movie this evening!  We definitely don't do that enough.  Looking back on 2014, It's been a good year for the Virginia Midland.  All the track has been laid this year and the lower level is ready for some scenery.  Probably the best improvement has been the restructured east end of the layout with the new peninsula.  It really adds to the layout and captures you when you enter the room.  I completed the sand unloading structure and added the support materials.  I still need some more dump trucks, a maintenance shed and more details.  It's good for now.  You be the judge:

Here's a shot of hoppers being unloaded

Here's the scene as you walk into the room. 

From the other side facing the door.

Another view of the unloader.

Yard office and parking area.

Road/crossing leading to the plant.  Perfect backdrop for the road but lots of work to do with it.

Another view

Also, yesterday had friend of mine, Mike Millitelo stop by to see the layout.  He's the owner of the Great Scale Model Train Show  that runs the four big train shows up in Timonium Maryland.  He actually lives about 10 minutes from me.  Mike had never operated a layout before so I got him to switch out Fredericksburg Flats.  He really enjoyed himself.   

Mike Millitelo stop by for his first op. session yesterday.  Think he's hooked!

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