Thinning of Tamiya acrylic paint

Hi,
I would be gladful if anyone can inform me if there is a need to thin tamiya acrylic paint before using it with an airbrush? If so what do you use to thin it?( eg I heard IPA is good) and at what ratio.

Thank for the advice.

tamiya sells their own thinner.. pick up some of that.. it should be right with the paints but in a bigger bottle

You will need to thin it, and while some alcohols work, even some lacquer thinners, Tamiya thinner is the best-you don't use all that much. Clean your airbrush with cheap lacquer thinner or Windex/ammonia-based window cleaner.

I thin mine with Car Screen Wash

I use denatured alcohol.

I've been experimenting to find a cheaper replacement for Tamiya acrylic thinner. This recipe seems to work real good. It smells exactly the same as Tamiya's thinner and the paint goes on in exactly the same way.

70% Isopropyl alcohol.
30% Distilled water. (or "Purified" water marked for use where distilled water is called for).

If your supermarket carries "70% isopropyl alcolhol" then you don't need to dilute it any more. If your supermarket carries "90% isopropyl alcohol" the ratio should be 78% IPA to 22% water.

In addition, I add my homemade "surfactant" to improve the paint flow and avoid orange peel. I put some distilled water into a clean 23ml glass paint jar and squirt in a few drops of dish washing liquid. I mix this thoroughly and then put 10 drops of the diluted mxture into a pint of my homebrew thinner.

A pint of this homebrew thinner costs about $1.50 versus $6 for half a pint of the real stuff.

Will Laquer thinner or acetone work good as airbrush cleaners (Acrylic)?

I currently use windshiled fluid but that doesn't do a good enough job. I use 70% IPO to clean brushes but haven't sprayed it through my airbrush due to cost (windshield fluid $.69 compared to $1.40).

I have a spray booth that takes all the vapors outside so im not worried about that but i'm looking for something i could spray and have my airbrush super clean.

Thanks

Will Laquer thinner or acetone work good as airbrush cleaners (Acrylic)?

Thanks

Lacquer no. don't know for acetone

I use regular alchool but I saw this some days ago:

http://www.tamiya.com/english/scale/beginner2/2.htm

It says:

Tamiya Paint:
- Acrylic paint: Water soluble acrylic paint. Safe and easy-to-use.

I did'd try it, but I guess it means water can be used :P

Water will not affect Tamiya paint (strangely) But Real Acrylic paint will work with Tamiya thinner.. quite strange

Thank for the reply. How about the thinning ratio? how many parts of paint to thinner?

Thank for the reply. How about the thinning ratio? how many parts of paint to thinner?

Try the search feature next time :wink:

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=245958&highlight=airbrush+user

It depends on the thickness of the paint.
For the airbrush you'll need to add thinner until you get the paint to flow like milk or else the airbrush won't work like you want. You'll get too many parts of air(gas) to parts of paint and will have to airbrush too close to the model.
Sometimes it's hard to tell if the paint is thinned enough.
Spray some paint from a can to a small container and that is the consistency needed.
You can also use paint from spray cans on an airbrush, just be sure there are no air bubbles in the paint.

Thank for the help. Just got back from my studies so kinda of slow in searching for past post. hehehee. This is what too much studying can do to your brain.

I use Laquer Thinner with Tamiya Acrylics all the time, to thin them and clean my airbrush. Works really good and it's fairly cheap.

I use the Tamiya thinner (X-20) for thinning their acrylics but use cheap 90% isopropyl alcohol for cleanup. Yes, I'm a chicken. I'm afraid to try anything else to thin. You can also use lacquer thinner to cleanup - very effective, in fact one could say overkill for acrylics.

Don't mean to jack this, but someone in my club asked me the other day what I use to thin Tamiya TS colors. I said I use lacquer thinner after decanting into my color cup and he seemed surprised I wasn't using X-20. Does anyone use X-20 with TS paints? Is it even possible?