Cleaning metal color cups?

[kurth]

I have been using an airbrush over 20 years now, and I have yet to come up with a good way to clean metal color cups. For glass bottles and plastic bottle tops, Purple Pond works great, but Purple Stuff ruins metal. I use mostly enamel, so I have resorted to putting them in a jar of lacquer thinner and using paper towels and q-tips to try and get them clean. When I use Acrylics, I can get them clean with soap and water or at worst windex.

any ideas on keeping color cups clean?

Thanks

[CadillacPat]

I would not put paper towels or q tips anywhere near the inside of containers I use for paint.

Why clean??

Use these.

“Paint Mix Medical Cups”

I've posted about the soft plastic film cans I use for mixing my paints.

Remember, your container has to be soft polypropylene plastic and not styrene, otherwise solvent paints will eat right through the container.

I've picked the film cans up from WalMarts over the years by the thousands and have a huge backstock.

But, WalMarts are phasing out their 35mm Photo Booths and they're going the way of BlackLight Poster Shops.

So goes the demise of easily available empty film cans.

Here's a cheap and even better substitute.

Clear, graduated Medicine Cups.

The one ounce cups are marked on four sides with different

graduations of measurements.

Capacity is the same as Film Cans but the clearly marked measurements make for perfect mixing.

Look in your Yellow Pages under Medical Supply stores.

The cups are $4 for 100.

The 2 Dram level is perfect for AirBrushes with 1/4oz. paint cups.

This amount will shoot a Colorcoat or Clearcoat for most HotWheels.

CadillacPat

[Chief Joseph]

Before I had a gravity-feed airbrush, I used those metal siphon cups, too. They are indeed a pain to clean, especially if you let the paint dry in them. I always dropped them into a container of lacquer thinner, too. I have six or seven of them, so I could always keep a couple of clean ones while I was soaking the rest. The best solution for me was to get a gravity feed airbrush and only use bottles (Iwata Big Mouth!) for the siphon airbrush.