Paint mixing

[speener]

This is my first post here This forum looks great. I am getting an iwata hp cs soon and i want to know if i can spray tamiya paint through it, the little round jars. If so how much should i thin it and you thin it with water right?
Thanks.

[freakray]

Welcome to AF

Yes, you can spray Tamiya acrylics through your airbrush, you may wish to get the correct thinner though. How much to thin it depends on paint consistency really, most people advise you thin paint until it is around the consistency of 2% milk.

BTW, a forum search will turn up much, much more info on this topic.

[MPWR]

Yes, Tamiya acrylics spray very well through an airbrush- but you will need to thin it with the proper thinner. Straight water will not work- it's too 'wet' to use as a thinner (it desn't evaporate fast enough, and will lead to drips and puddling). Tamiya's acrylic thinner is great- worth the efort to find. I usualy thin between 1.5:1 and 1:1 paint:thinner. If you can't find it, than I'd spray it thinned with a mix of isopropyl alcohol and water. Do a search on thinning Tamiya acrylics (like freakray sed), and you'll find some good info on it.

Oh, and welcome to AF!

[speener]

i found someone who said thin with 91 % isopropyl alcohol. 3:1 Paint/ thinner. Or for thin lines use 1:1. This sounds reasonable i guess there is no magic number here. Thanks for the replies and sorry for not using the search i was anxious to my first post i guess

[M1CRO]

welcome to the forum speener... and dont worry about asking questions here.. almost everyone has a wealth of information thats useful. :P

M1CRO.

[wouter1981]

what I do: I buy a bottle of tamiya acylic and fill it to the top with tamiya acrylic thinner. This does it always al the times for me. But there isn't a standard solution, you need to experiment. I've heard of people who spray it straith out of the jar. It all depends on youre airbrush, the way to spray, humidity, temperature, ......Just experiment...

[KevinY]

1:1 thinner/paint ratio works for me most of the time with most Tamiya Acrylics

[MPWR]

Originally Posted by speener

i found someone who said thin with 91 % isopropyl alcohol. 3:1 Paint/ thinner. Or for thin lines use 1:1. This sounds reasonable i guess there is no magic number here. Thanks for the replies and sorry for not using the search i was anxious to my first post i guess

Staight 91% will probably give you some trouble. It will definately spray, but the alcohol will evaporate out of the spray stream too rapidly, paritally drying thepiant before it hits the surface. This leads to a bumpy, textured surface. It's better to thin with a mix of water and isopropyl, maybe 50/50 to control the speed the thinner evaporates. You wan it wet, but not too wet. It takes experimenting. But Tamiya acrylic thinner is definately worth finding and using. You certainly don't have to use it to clean up (window cleaner is perfect for cleaning Tamiya acrylics!), but the paint will behave better when thinned with the propriatary thinner.

[bhop73]

There was a guy on another forum I frequent who had an uncle that's an actual chemical scientist or something. He had his uncle do tests of Tamiya Thinner and 91% Isopropyl Alcohol and the results were that they were almost identical...

I've been using 91% Alcohol for all my Tamiya paints and it works great 100% of the time. Zero problems. The advantage being that it costs about 2 bucks for a 16oz bottle, compared to the Tamiya which is usually around 7 bucks for 8 ounces.