Ultrasonic Cleaning

I just bought an ultrasonic cleaner to clean my airbrushes - disassembled them and put all the parts into the cleaner, filled with water and the manual suggests a few drops of liquid detergent, but I put in a few drops of windex instead to help break down any dried acrylic. I wasn't expecting too much, but they actually came out very clean - and much easier than what I had been doing.

I picked up the ConAir model JC3SB from a local Bed, Bath and Beyond using a $25 Discover reward card and a 20% off coupon that seem to breed in my mailbox. The total came to around $18 out of pocket, so I am quite pleased. I'm not sure if it can be used to clean resin parts too, but I think I will give that a try in the future.


Above: Disassembled dirty Masters G44 in the ultrasonic cleaner.
Below: Reassembled clean Masters G44 on the left, Eclipse HP-BCS on the right and cleaning brushes on top which are still useful for daily cleaning.


Also, here's my home-made spraying booth using a surplus filter fan mounted in a box with exhaust duct. It cost about $30 for the fan with filter and $20 for the wood, duct and reducers. The "hood" is made from an amazon.com shipping box, which I have plenty of, so it is easily replaced.


It's a down draft design, so air flows down with the overspray (taking advantage of gravity), but the vents are mounted facing back so I'm not spraying directly into the filter. Most of the overspray hits the hood and vents and anything left gets sucked into the filter, which is washable and reusable.

It works really well, even at high pressure spraying, though I still wear a respirator just in case. The large binder clip on the right side makes for a cheap airbrush holder when there's paint in the cup.