ARTIST PROFILE
DATA
Written by: DENISE THURSTON
"Repairing & Sharpening Needles"
Copyright 2007 Airbrushtech.net
I bend a lot of needles. I use Createx and Aqua Flow in 12 to15 Paasches VL #3 at a time airbrushing t-shirts and other various items. Paasche needles are easily bent therefore I am continuously buying new needles or repairing the bent ones. Either I'm smacking the tip of the needle against the shirt and shirt board or pulling a stuck needle out of an airbrush with a pair of pliers to get it out when the needle gets covered in acrylic paint and sticks inside the airbrush.
Pulling a Paasche needle with pliers will curve the needle or bend the small size in diameter portion of the needle if you don't pull straight out. Bending the smaller diameter portion at the joining of the larger will most likely result in a ruined needle. It's difficult to be able to straighten the needles well enough to keep using them but it can be done if the needle isn't too out of alignment. If the needles are too bent to be straightened these needles can be used as cleaning tools and air hole openers.
Separate the straighter needles from the ones thatr are too far gone to fool with.
Repairing Paasche Needles
Hold the needles up to the light and spin them in your fingers and watch the tips. If a needle is bent and it is next to a straight needle you will see the bent needle tip move in a wider circle and move away from the straight needle as the bend moves to the opposite side of the straight needle.
Rolling a needle on a flat surface as you would a pool cue will show you if your needle is bent or curved. Holding a few needles with straight ones side by side in your hands will also show which are bent at the smaller portion.
Look closely at the tips of the needles to judge whether they are repairable. Extreme hooks at the tips aren't worth the trouble and it's best to replace those with new needles. Slight hooks can be fixed.
Bent tips can also be repaired with rolling the tip of the needle upon a flat surface to bend back the some of the hook then polishing the tip and reforming it.
Sharpening Paasche Needles
Needles can be sharpened and small hooks removed with sand paper of varying grits from course to super fine. You can also use fish hook sharpeners from sporting goods departments. Repairing a hooked tip of a Paasche VL #3 is easy when you carry in your toolbox nail care items. Fingernail files are sand paper on a board. Emery boards, Nail Filers, Nail Smoothers and Nail Buffers. They don't take up much room and don't fly away in the wind like sand paper. The varying grits of the sand paper used in the nail files and buffers is all you need to fix those pesky hooks. A 7-in-1 buffer is great for this because it has 7 grits from course to very very fine.
To repair the needles that are slightly bent, roll the small diameter portion on a hard surface holding the needle at a slight angle way from the surface. Apply pressure to the tip of the needle to bend it the direction you want it to go. Do not push hard. Push until the top of the smaller portion of the needle no longer spins in a wide circle but spins straight up and down with the straight needle as reference.
When you get to the finer grits spin your needle against the boards to form your tip and to smooth it. The pink file is a pink smoother grit 320.
By the time you get to the finest grit your needle should be straight smooth and hook free. Not show is the pink/grey nail buffers that will have the finest buffing grits.
Using A 7-in-1 Buffer
Hold the needle up to the light and twrl it to see which direction the hook is. Start by using the coarsest grit, #1 on the 7-in-1 buffer. Pull backwards on the needle keeping the needle at the angle of the tip of the needle to wear down the hook.
Keep looking at the needle in the light to see your progress as you work your way through the numbers on the 7 In 1 nail buffer.
The final side and finest grit is #7. The #7 side is the finest polishing grit to give the shine to your newly repaired needle. Sand paper and Wet dry sand paper can replace the nail boards. Working from 280 or coarser grits through 600, 800, 1000, 1500. 200. and 2500 can do the same as the nail boards.
