Anybody here use Tamiya acrylics?

I picked up a bottle of Tamiya acrylic paint (gloss). I have never airbrushed Tamiya paints before, what works as a good thinner and what sort of ratio should I start out with?? Anything else I need to know? Thanks

Tamiya acrylic thinner works as a good thinner.

The thinning ratio is dependant on the paint consistency of the paint in the jar, add thinner gradually until the paint is about the consistency of milk and it should airbrush fine.

Well Tamiya acrylic are near the consistency of milk, don't need much thinning

Well Tamiya acrylic are near the consistency of milk, don't need much thinning
No, they don't, fortunately :)

I would use rubbing alcohol. It's cheap, dries fast, and works really nice.

Problem with rubbing alcohol is it can dry too fast and you don't get a good finish.

Problem with rubbing alcohol is it can dry too fast and you don't get a good finish.

Precisely. You use so little Tamiya thinner to airbrush the paint, why cheap out when the original thinner works so well? Considering how many people have paint problems, you'd think that they'd learn by now not to scrimp.

Cleaning the airbrush is another story. Use Windex or cheap cleanup lacquer thinner. But Tamiya thinner is by far the best choice to thin their paints, especially their gloss paints.

I use Tamiya acrylic thinner for thinning Tamiya paints. They are better than ordinary isopropyl alcohol. To save cost, I only use isopropyl alcohol for general washing off Tamiya acrylics after airbrushing or brush painting.

However, I am gradually switching to Gunze Mr Color(synthetic lacquer based acrylics) paints for airbrushing and Gunze Aqueous Hobby Color(water soluble acrylics) paints for brush painting. Unfortunately, I have amassed a lot of Tamiya acrylics before my switch to Gunze. Gunze paints have far finer paint pigments than Tamiya thus will dry to a thinner and smoother finish compared to Tamiya.

The only other brand which I seldom used, but tested and founded to be as equally superb as Gunze paints, are Vallejo acrylics. It is not so popular in my country for 3 reasons:
1) All their bottle caps are of same standard colour (not color coded!) - white cap for normal acrylics, and black cap for factory pre-thinned airbrush ready acrylics. Even though the bottles are made of translucent PE, it is still difficult to search for colours, except to read the labels.
2) Their colour names seemed more suited/catered towards figurine paintings. So don't expect to find something like NATO Green or Italian Red etc.
3) Lack of widespread distribution.

I heard about good compliments to Pollyscale paints. But it is quite rare in my own country, and I heard it is expensive too. So Gunze acrylics is my favourite.

I am so satisfied with Gunze paints that it is exciting to watch the paint dry. :rofl::icon16:

This is my usual disertation on using Tamiya acrylics:

I use them all- Tamiya, Gunze, and MM Acryl. For thinning, I use a mixture of 25ish% isopropyl alcohol, and 75ish% distilled water (or tap water, when I'm lazy). Mix this ratio by your preference. More alcohol, and the paint will dry faster, more water and it will dry slower. Too fast (most or all alcohol), and the finish may be grainy, as the paint will partially dry in the spray stream. Too slow, and its of course more likely to puddle- but, I've used anywhere from 1:3 to 1:6 alcohol:water and had good results- so this ratio isn't too critical. I keep this ina small plastic dropper bottle- I pour a bit of paint into the airbrush paint cup, and put a few drops of thinning solution in, test spray, and adjust, if necessary.

For cleanup, I use windex glass cleaner- don't use the cheap generic stuff, it doesn't have enough ammonia in it to be effective. Just put it into the paint cup, and spray and backpressure until it runs clear. Windex works very well as a stripper for Tamiya and Gunze acrylics (so be careful using it around painted objects!), and it's terrific for cleaning the airbrush. Windex won't dissolve dried Acryl, but it works great for cleanup after spraying. If you leave it to dry, Testor's MM Acryl cleaner will certainly do the trick. It comes in another small plastic dropper bottle, just like I use for thinning solution and windex.

Before painting a car body, or anything else that I'm super paranoid about paint contamination on, I take the airbrush apart and clean the tip, needle, paint cup and siphon with a bit of laquer cleaner, with qtips and pipe cleaner. Laquer thinner will clean just about anything that may be dried in your airbrush.

Your right that gloss acrylics do take a while to dry until they're ready to polish, but I've never had a paint job with acrylic that wan't ready to polish in about a week. I've had enamel finishes take up to six weeks to cure. Frequently when I polish, I find that I can spray a couple of thin coats of Tamiya clear (X22 I think), polish it after two days, spray some more, wait two days and polish some more(repeat as necessary). I find that it's very forgiving, and a little bit of patience will yield a blinding P-man shine. :thumbsup:

Give it a try!

so I guess you dont use the model master acrylic thinner or the tamiya thinner for spraying????

Nah, I don't bother with them. No reason not to, really, but I've been happy with just water & isopropyl. I guess I've heard a rumor that there's an additive in the Tamiya thinner that makes their gloss acrylics work better somehow, but I haven't found much difference. If you try them, let me know!

I don't use Tamiya acrylics much, but one complaint I've heard about them is they take forever to harden enough to be polished (including MPWR above). Dunno myself but might be something you'll want to be cautious of. Me. I use lacquers - dry almost instantly and polishable shortly after. Potentially bad health effects though, if you don't protect yourself.

I've polished the Tamiya Acrylics with about a week cure time.

It's important to use the right polish as some of the automotive polishes can dissolve the paint a little, making it soft again. I have a truck painted with Tamiya acrylics that's been laying about for almost a year and when I tried to polish it with LMG's stuff it turned weird on me. I've tried Tamiya's own rubbing compound and there's been no problems with strange reactions with that one.

Cheers
Niclas

ive only used tamiya thinnner with tamiya paints and it works well to me but 95% of the time I use enamel paints which i prefer due experience, better finishes i get and the cheap prices plus its easier to clean, i use revell enamels and revell thinner and get fantastic results but im trying to use other paints so that I can broaden my skills and usability of paints in general. Ive heard great thinks from users of laquers, can any of u guys tell me which companies sell laquer paints (1s that are sold in the uk would be nice) and whats best to thin those?

thks

Tamiya acrylic or enamel especially for airbrushing? anyone found one to be better than the other?

I've never gotten good results with the Tamiya acrylics for cars...they look great for military and aircraft, but I would stick with enamels for cars.

Easy to get result with flat colors, harder if you want a gloss finish.

i use tamiya's acrylic thinner to basically dilute every brand of mine acrylic paints and that works just fine. I recommond you to dilute the paint with the ratio of 1paint: 0.5thinner.

opps, forgot to say that tamiya's acrylic thinner is X20A, there's an 'A' in the name, otherwise, X20 is the thinner for enamels

I suggest you give a try to the "tamiya retarder", to be used with Tamiya's X-20a "thinner" to improve paint flow and airbrush ease of cleaning. Ratio of the retarder to thinned paint is about 1:10.

Using X20A thinner allows me to put back in the jar the unused paint without worries.

In these days I'm using Tamiya's Lacquer thinner with their acrylics...results are interesting: good flow, fast dry times, paint seems more durable to scratches and polishing. Non yet used decals on it.

Hope this helps :-)

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