Last night I was finishing my Tatooine diorama, and I had painted a few items.
Since my Aztek kept clogging, after lots of suffering I decided to clean it out with TriChloreEthylene. This is a strong stain remover and it works wonders to clean up paint, even dry paint. But.

The compressor was switched off and I had cleaned out the handle. Just when I was checking if there were no bits of paint left inside (the nozzle was removed), I accidentally pushed the button. Some extra pressure was still in the system and it squirted a strong jet of this product straight in both my eyes.

This hurt like hell. I mean it HURT like HELL ! Eyes closed, I bolted down the stairs and jumped into the shower with clothes and all, to try to rinse this stuff out of my eyes. The burning stuff in my eyes was a real agony. After 15 mins of shower it still burned a lot, but I adready could open my eyes again and discovered I hadn't lost my eyesight. After another 30 mins of bathing both eyes in a small liquor glass filled with water, I drove to the hospital's ER. They checked my eyes and prescribed antibiotics/costison droplets. I had a horrible night.
This morning, my eyes were stuck together a bit, but after a shower I felt a lot better. I went to the optician for a checkup and he said my eyes should be healed in a week or so.
This whole event scared the willies out of me and the whole family and I decided to throw the stuff out of the house. .

In the fight a bottle of Tamiya painted fell on the carpet, but I was not in the mood to clean up the battle damage when I came home from the hospital. I'll do that tonight. Maybe I can use the rest of the Trichl... to clean out the carpet..

What do YOU guys/gals use to efficiently clean your paint set ?

Ouch...
I've got a pair of plastic eye defenders that I wear when grinding or spraying - this isn't because I'm avid on safety, I wear glasses and it helps to keep 'em clean. You bet i'll be wearing my safety glasses more from now on...

JAn

I hope you can read this (sorry I know it`s a sad story though I still have to think about the loony tunes scenes where a guy looks in the barrel of his gun thinking why it didn`t fire and then it goes off)

What I usually do when I`m finished spraying with me AB. I grab the Thinner pour the cup full and spray that in an old vegetable jar (groentepotje) I always spray at the same spot on the inside of it. There the glass is clear. I repeat spraying with thinner till the the fluid that comes out is transparent just as normal thinner is. Then I pour water in the cup to spray all the thinner out. I do this a couple of times too.
Then I disassemble it and with a small piece of toilet paper I clean all the parts apart (the needle, the nozzle, the thing around the nozzle. the paintcup) Then I spray once with thinner again and twice with water. and then I spray for a minute only air to get all the fluids out of the nozzle area. And then I let the whole thing dry.

This is a way of AB cleaning that I learned from a teacher who gave me lessons AB ing at school. It`s very timeconsuming but he told me for the better care of your AB follow these instructions carefully. He was also the man who gave me my AB.

Just my two cents

Jan,
Hope you feel better soon bud.
Sorry to hear 'bout the accident.....have few beers, that'll sort you out!

Oh man, your are lucky you haven't lost your sight. It must have been your quick thinking and the long shower. Why do we always learn things the hard way?

I know, I know. What can I say ? I was cleaning i for over five minutes and the compressor was turned off. After a while you forget this is an AB... I didn't expect it to blow anymore.

If this site ever gives purple hearts or "moron of the month" awards, I must be high on the list now.

Sorry to hear that Jan,

I hope u get well soon !

(i always luved the spray cans, and i will always !)

Ouch! What is it with eyes today?

Not that it compares to your mishap, but this actually happened to me today. I went to spray some hairspray on my head and the nozzle was clogged and sent 2 streams of the stuff right into my damn eyes. Thats what I get for using that crap!

Hope you get well soon and there isn't any permanent damage

I guess the lesson here is to watch were you paint that airbrush, even if you've powered down the compressor. I guess the hose and the airbrush itself could still have some pressure in it. Even using a Q-tip in the paint nozzle will be enough to force paint and cleaners out the nozzle. The other day I wasn't careful where I was pointing my airbrush as I was running alcohol through it to clean it, and I ended up spraying my tank on the workbench... there went the nice new paintjob!

Sorry to hear about the mishap!! I would like to join in on the desire that no permanent damage has occured!! God Bless!!

I have an Aztek also. I always have a plastic tub filled a few cms with what ever cleaner I need. After changing the color two or three times I throw the tip and the cup in the container to clean out a little extra. Inbetween colors I have one of the glass jars filled with what I need and try to get off all the paint I can. It might be a bit cumbersome, but as of yet I haven't had any major mishaps...

This picture of the toon looking down the barrell is the exact reason I try not look at anything that "shoots" down the barrell...

Jan,
Thank goodness your eyes got rinsed out in time. That must be some really strong stuff!

I guess that this is a good thing for others to hear and perhaps they will be more cautious doing what sometimes seems to be run-of-the-mill routines.

Safety glasses or goggles for airbrushing/cleaning?

Reminds of a stupid incident on my part with my daughter. I had one of those "can of air" PC cleaning cans near my desk and I thought I would be cute with my (then) 1 year old daughter and spray some "air" in her face. Little did I know until reading the can that it was not just CO2 under pressure but all sorts of nasty chemicals. We had to wash out her eyes for 15 minutes and luckily no problems came of it. Boy my wife was pissed. Rightfully so, I should have known better.... ALWAYS look to see what it is you are playing/working with!

Hope you feel better,
Jim

I feel sorry for you too

Yikes Jim, that's some pretty risky playing you were doing there. But I understand where the mistake comes from. Sometimes we forget to be careful when we're having fun with stuff. After being involved in hobbies such as Paintball, Airsoft, and some recreational firearms shootingI have learned (hopefully) to treat anything that discharges anything with care wether they are loaded or not. You just can't risk something wrong happening.

Glad to hear your alright Big Bad Wolf #1 (nearly got promoted there ) Some lessons are hard learnt. I reckon that the best way to learn is by someone elses mistake. Lesson learned, thanks Jan.
Seriously though TRIC (pronounced trike)as it's known in th UK is pretty nasty stuff, at least one guy as been killed by it (cleaning out a degreasing tank). I think it's actually banned hear. Really surprised that it's used domestically. I use cellulose thinner but just soke my AB parts in it, until the next time they are used.
Glad you are OK
Mal

That's the worst part : I HAVE safety glasses, and I USE them. But when the spraying was over I put them aside, and I was just fidgetting a bit : cleaning up working table, cleaning airbrush, putting on another piece of music, and then all of a sudden PSSSCHHT ! it happened.

Thanks for all the words of sympathy, fellas. I think my eyesight won't suffer from this in the end (now there's a halo around everything).

Just do me one favor, y'all : remember this is a stupid thing to do and be careful when handling the airbrush.
Good thing we cal laugh about it now. 24 Hrs ago I was rushing to the ER...

Sorry for Emily, Jim. The same thing could have happened to me. Good grief my wife would have been FURIOUS !

Jan, I'm sorry to hear about your misfortune.
Something pretty close happened to me : I sprayed paint straight into my eyes when painting my parents home... conditions were approx the same : I didn't think the paint pistol was live and I was very surprised to find out (the hard way) that it was when I accidentaly pushed the trigger. After a good rinse, and a check up at the ophtalmologist, it was found out that everything was OK.

In france, it is now nearly completely impossible to by Trichlo because it is so dangerous. It was often used by modelers but now they can't anymore because it's so much of a health hazard.

Jan,

So sorry to hear about your accident. I hope all is well and things get back to normal quickly for you!

_____________________
Robert

Jan,

Just glad to hear you are ok. You should still get your eyes checked out by an opthalmologist to make sure there is no damage, no matter how insignificant. My mother was blind for a year, although not from a similar incident, and its nothing to play around with. It doesn't hurt, except $$$$, to doublecheck. Don't let it slide. Your eyesight IS worth it!

I don't use an airbrush, but Selrach has pulled out of storage his old airbrush and is planning on cleaning it up and getting back into using it. Thanks for the post and sharing that with us. I'm going to be keeping an eye on him and remind him to be careful.

plastic_widow

Hope you get well Jan!

I hope there will be no later effects with your eyes Jan. When I clean out my airbrush, I spray it into an old bottle stuffed with paper towels. After it's clean, I continue spraying I turn the pressure off. I use regular paint thinner for enamels and windex or rubbing alcohol for acrylics. Hope you get better soon....

Wow man....I hope there is no permanent damage......but I think your quick thinking of jumping in the shower probably saved you.....

My only question is.....why would your airbrush still be hooked up to your compressor when you are cleaning it? Do alot of you leave your AB hooked to your air source while you are cleaning? I mean I shoot thinner or water or whatever through mine to clean out most of the paint....but the AB gets disconnected to clean more thouroughly after.....I thought everyone would do this......I mean other wise...wouldn't it be like cleaning a loaded gun?

Maybe I misunderstood what General was doing.....but it sounded to me like he was doing a thourough cleaning and not just a run through of thinner to get rid of that color.

By no means am I trying to make light of this situation, as it is a bad accident, was just interested as to how it actually happened.

Ya know Scott, I think I know what you are meaning! I've never thought of it that way!!!

I have a quick release on my connection to the compressor. Easy as pie to undo that when I'm doing a complete cleaning on my a/b. When I need to force air through it again just snap it in again!!! Sometimes things seem to be so simple!!! Please take no offense Jan, I'm just thinking on screen for my own benefit...

Wow, dude, that sucks! Glad to hear that your eyes are ok... It could've been worse, your eyes could of blanked out on you while you were driving to the ER, I hate to think what would've happened then...

If you build models for any period of time, you will qualify for the purple heart. Sorry to hear about your mishap, Jan. Fortunately, you kept a level head and washed your eyes out immediately. Hope you heal soon.

Patrick