Solvent for hardened waterbased acrylic paint

[Dengue]

Hello, I dug out my little Earlex HVLP spray outfit, only to find the test spray pattern with turps on cardboard was not too great, seemed to be a hollow in the centre of the fan pattern, and the fan pattern was curved instead of straight up and down .

I previously used it with waterbased acrylic paint 6 months ago, and the jets and air passage ways need cleaning, as shown below.

Can anyone please advise me how best to do this? Is there a solvent that will get rid of the hardened gunk?

[Bob38S]

Water based paint can be softened/removed with methylated spirits. You may need to soak it for a while and give it a scrub with a hard toothbrush but it should be successful.

Regards,
Bob

[snowyskiesau]

You could try a brush restoring liquid (Poly brand)
. Softens most paints to the point where a toothbrush can be used to clean up.

[dr4g0nfly]

Many years ago I had a similar problem and found the best stuff to remove acryic paint was Trichloroethane or Percalone - particularly nasty CFCs (as is now known).

However they were sold as Dry Cleaning fluids, so it might be worth trying whatever you can get now for dry cleaning.

[BamBam53]

You could also try soaking it in lacquer thinner.

[Cliff Rogers]

Heat.... not so much that you melt the parts you want to keep.

[Dengue]

Many thanks for all your suggestions. Ended up soaking in Prepsol thinners, and that did the trick. Still needed a little effort with a toothpick scraping some of it from the air passages, but it worked :2tsup: