newbie needs help

[polishdodge]

Hey guys!
name's mack and i come from poland.i have a paasche vl airbrush and i have a lil problem here.
the thing is-when i use a basecoat or a non-water thinned paint and my needle is dry when i press the trigger down and the airflow is on.the paint starts to flow.i noticed that when i push the triger down the needle moves a lil bit .i reduced the pressure and it stopped and then started again.
is this normal? do i reduce the paint to much, is the pressure to big or the worst part-is my airbrush damaged or something??when i reduce the pressure the paint isn't forming a nice spray patterns...
Btw: when using basecoat i thin it in a 1:2 just like the technical sheet says.
help...
thanks Mack

[egneg]

The needle shouldn't move when you press the trigger for air. The slot on the trigger where the needle slides through may be pinched. The needle may not have enough tension on it from the spring in the back. Also check to make sure that all parts are clean and there is not any dried paint on them.

[polishdodge]

Thanks !

[polishdodge]

i dissasembled it... cleaned... assembled...
and the needle is still moving.
the trigger pushes the needle to the back... i just don't kow why

[daayo357]

Hey man, im also an uber noob to the whole airbrushing world, but i am very mechanically inclined and i just spent about 4 hours messin with my cheapo airbrush (just bought a Paasche VL, its on the way!!!) cause it had the same problem. After inspecting it thouroghly i have a suggestion for ya:

1)first loosen the needle adjusting sleeve so there is almost no tension on it and loosen the the needle lock nut. next, screw the line adjustment nut tward the finger lever so that it is pushing the lever maybe 1/6 of the way back (i used trial and error) and push the needle so thats it is sticking as far out of the head as it can (dont push out too hard). then tighten the needle lock nut. after you've tightened the needle lock nut unscrew the the line adjustment nut and screw the needle adjusting sleeve so it is about 1/4 the way tensioned. This should push the finger lever forward a bit. I found that if you tighten the sleeve too much the needle will continue to move back when the finger button is pressed down. hopefully that solves your problem.

I think what this effectively does is gives the trigger a little "slack" before it pulls the needle back. I noticed on my AB that the reason the needle was going back a bit was because when i pushed down to start the air flow the finger lever also moved back a little as it went down.

i referred to http://www.dixieart.org/VLParts.html for all the names of the parts.

also. i'd be interested in the opinions of the pros on what that actually did

Lemme know if it works!!!
if not sorry im a noob too

[Ispray]

Sounds more of a control problem than the AB, Your stopping the paint flow and air flow at the same time. start the air, pull back for paint, forward to stop paint up to stop air.
When you start the air you may be pulling the trigger back just a hair by not pressing streight down. I push slighly forward and down to start the air as I had the same problem and that stopped the little spurts of paint.

[egneg]

Another thing is to start the air with the airbrush pointing away from the piece you are working on. Once the air is on point it at what you want to paint.

[grinnen30]

That is a great tip from egneg...I almost messed a couple of paintings because of that...