Hey, guys,
Because I'm so involved with acrylic paint (search only, for the moment, work later), I read all the posts I found regarding acrylics. Appartently, there may be a problem with the pigment not always being ground fine enough and clogging the airbrush nozzle, sometimes within seconds of using it. I never had such a problem with Floquil lacquers, which I airbrushed for years, first using a homemade airbrush I made from an automotive blow-pipe (I sold the article "I Made My Airbrush" to MR, 'way back when), then with a simple Badger single-action airbrush. However, I did buy a couple of in-bottle paint filters from Walthers, always cleaning them with Dio-Sol, along with the rest of the airbrush parts.
When I finally got back to painting--after finslly finishing an O scale model from the late Paul Larson's construction article for his gondola-mounted snowplow in the January, 1957, Model Railroader--I found I had lost both of these handy paint filters. I airbrushed my snowplow with Model Flex "Light Oxide Red" right out of the bottle without a filter because I could no longer find them(!), without problems.
Badger's Model Flex paint sprayed just fine, but I wasn't sure of my thinning job on Poly Scale, so I inquired at the local automotive paint shop where I'd bought several other accessories for my Badger airbrush, including a "Heavy" nozzle set, and found the in-bottle filters are a standard Badger part, #50-2016! It's a little cylinder of fine stainless steel screen, closed at the bottom with the same screen, with a nylon cap with a hole in the center for the paint syphon tube. I can't find the sales slip, but I'm sure it cost in the $5-10 range.
There may be others available, but I couldn't find a listing. Pretty sure I bought the first one from Walthers and the second from Micro-Mark. I haven't used the new one yet, but I don't have anything ready for painting right now. Happy railroadin'!
Deano
P.S. If you're mixing paint by incessently shaking bottles, you might do it a quicker, better way: buy a little battery-powered mixer from Micro-Mark, Walthers, or wherever (try LHS first, as always). I bought mine from M-M, included with other items, for about eleven bucks, made a bale handle on it from handle wire from Chinese take-out ("Waste not, want not.") and it hangs from a cup hook on the "back bar" of my workbench. Very handy! D.H.H.
I don't bother with the filters. I just use 2" x 2" section of nylon stocking when I pour the paint over into my paint cup. The acrylics have tendency to dry in the cap and then that dried paint can fall into the jar and then get sucked into the airbrush (if one shoots right from the paint jar).
I use the plastic condiment cups (from McDonalds!) to mix the paint with thinner (if neccesary) and then I pour from there into my paint cup. If the paint is thick (Polyscale) I pour some into a plastic cup, then I thin it and then use the stocking to pour over into another cup before I pour it into the paint cup.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
In almost 40 years of painting, I've never had to strain or filter paint, although I've used Modelflex only once - and won't use it again. Floquil, Scalecoat, Model Masters, Humbrol, Pactra, Tamiya, Polly S, Pollyscale - not a problem.
Wayne
Then you're just plain lucky!
I use a #60 screen funnel, before the paint goes into the jar or color cup.
modelmaker51 Then you're just plain lucky!
I found a set of strainer funnels from Micromark, and they work quite well.
Strainer funnels
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
doctorwayne modelmaker51 Then you're just plain lucky! Well, I certainly feel that I have been fortunate in life, but never lucky. As for painting, I would contact the manufacturer if I were to buy paint and find that it required straining or filtering. Any new paint in which the vehicle and pigment don't properly mix is defective. Any old paint, which may have been on your shelf too long and perhaps improperly stored, and which won't mix, is beyond saving - likely too much solvent has evapourated from it or the pigment is no longer soluble. You can strain out the lumps, but what remains likely bears little resemblance to what the paint was originally. Because I painted both commercially and for friends, I went through a lot of paint, occasionally several bottles in a session - not much of it had a chance to go bad. Wayne
I am also a commercial painter/builder and I agree mostly with what you say. Solvent paints that dry in the cap will redisolve because of the solvent base, however with acrylics any dried paint that falls into the bottle will not redisove and therefore needs to strained. Now if you're mainly using fresh bottles of paint you shouldn't have a problem. Since I only use acrylics, I have occaisionly had these issues so I strain my paint as a matter of course and never have an issue with clogging airbrushes.