airbrushing nail polish

does anybody know the type of thinners you could use to thin down nail polish to allow it to be airbrushed>? becuase i spotted the SIKest colour to be used on my 4th project (AMT 1970 impala SS, done as a semi lowrider). the only thing ive actually seen this colour in it nail polish. oh and its a maybellen (sp?) brand if that helps.
thnx guys, WIDELOAD

This might be an interesting article for you:
http://modelpaint.tripod.com/nailpolish101.htm

I have a question that i can't find at either site. I just finished laying down the dry coats and 1st wet coat on my R32 , I'm painting it in a metalic dark green. when it dried the texture was like coarse sandpaper (almost like something in the nailpolish was standing up off of the finish. Will polishing with 2000 grit and some polishing compound fix this or am i doing something totally wrong.
thanks, and sorry for thread jacking

that sounds like it either was mixed to thin or you are running to much air pressure ...


i always mix nail polish with acetone till it is just a little thinner then milk ... and spray it ... always has a semi dull finish .. but i clear over that.

I've never tried acetone...I know it's a solvent for nail polish but I assumed it would evaporate too fast. It works okay, yeah?

I thin it 50/50 with some cellulose thinners but it still drys very fast. I put it on at low pressure with the airbrush pretty close to the surface. The last one I did was a Jeep which is in a pink pearl with flake..it was a bitch to put on :banghead:

jswillmon: it sounds like you have too much pressure like flea says or you have the airbrush too far from the surface. I found that it was actually pretty hard to do a decent wet coat with some nail polish types and had to settle for lots of ligh dust coats with clear over the top.

ok, i've only been airbrushing since christmas so i'm still honing my skills. do you think i can polish the roughness out. also i used laquer thinner to thin it to the consistency of milk.

What's the preferred clearcoat used?

isn't nailpolish a bit expensive to use as model paint? or do u only use a small amount? (coz im picturing at least 5 bottles here...)

ok now i am sure some will laugh at this .. but what i have used for clear with the nail polish airbrushed on ... is 'future floor polish' ... it is a real thick liquid ... and is self leveling but can be sprayed through an airbrush ...


make sure when thinning the nail polish 'or lacquer, heh my spelling sucks' you use pure acetone (or if there is a beauty supply shop around .. they should have a product made specifically for thinning nail polish which will still keep the shine) .. you can use the acetone based nail polish remover but it will dull it down even moreso ... one thing to remember about nail polish .. it is semi transparent .. so either do a basecoat ... or use several coats till you have the coverage you want

not sure where you are located .. but here in the US .. we have these flea market type shops that have 100's of wild colors to choose from in nail polishes that are $1 a bottle ... that will make almost twice the amount to spray ... and one bottle thinned out should do the full car ... with a little left over ...

you can try to polish it out a bit .. but likely it won't .. would be better to clear it ... and then start sanding .. then reclear till you have a smooth finish ... or strip it and try again ... it takes some pratice with an airbrush ... i still mess up almost half of what i paint ... but i just strip it down and redo it again later...

a few hi-jacks there:p. but yeah, thanks for the replys. i was planing to do a base coast of light silver so it would bring out the flake in the nail polish. so you say to use pure acetone (i have some of that :biggrin: ) but wouldnt that eat through the primer and attack the plastic? becuase acetone is a strong solvent....someone else suggested cellulose thinner. how well does that work>?

i guess that would depend on what kind of primer you are using ... when i use it i normally put down a black , white or silver base (no primer) and then the colored nail polish on top of it ... (letting each coat cure for a while before doing the second one) .. and haven't had a problem with it eating through ...

i am sure if you tried to spray it on thick it would soften the plastic of the body till it dried ... with how i mix it .. when i spray ... normally within a min or two it is dry (nail polish dries quickly) ... so there isn't a lot of time for it to do damage... but i spray on light coats for the first few coats before i get thicker ... so it builds up a base so to speak ...

to be safe ... use a junk body to test it out and see how it works for you before sprayin on your good project :)

yeha i was planing to use the S**TTER body off my old Nascar truck thing (long since parted out for other models). so thats my test body. never know if it turns out alright i might acutally use the body for a slotcar... :silly:

ok now i am sure some will laugh at this .. but what i have used for clear with the nail polish airbrushed on ... is 'future floor polish' ... it is a real thick liquid ... and is self leveling but can be sprayed through an airbrush ...


Actually.... I have a bottle of Future floor wax on my shelf for modelling :lol: The bad thing about Future is that it can't be polished, so I find it works great for small detail parts (it can be applied with a brush quite safely) but I don't like using it for bodies.

I use:
1. Automotive primer (Plastikote)
2. Nail polish thinned about 50/50 with lacquer thinner.
3. Automotive or Tamiya clear.
Nail polish isn't that much mor complicated to use than Tamiya bottle paints prepped for an airbrush. Practice on old junk kits first though! Good luck :)

The bad thing about Future is that it can't be polished, so I find it works great for small detail parts (it can be applied with a brush quite safely) but I don't like using it for bodies.[/QUOTE]


:eek7:
I've certainly been able to polish it! But I've found that Tamiya's acrylic clear works much better (despite its much higher cost per ounce!)

yeah future is a PITA to try to polish if you get a rough finish ... since it is more of a polish then a paint it makes sense tho ...

i can polish my future clear coat no problem.. as long as it's completely dry (i.e. at least 24 hours)

The car below was painted using the method I described in a earlier post.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid80/p2cda58145fa2aae8ed30bbab36e6e4ce/fb092133.jpg

tonioseven, that looks FULLY SIK MATE. goodstuff, im gonna have a crack at paint with nailpolish in bout a week when i start my 1/38th datsun fairlady Z (with wind up motor :loser: )