New to acrylics

[Don149]

After 60 years of plastic modelling, from painting them with real dope to the early days of Humbrol enamels at a shilling (5p) per tin,

and over the last few years Hannants Xtracolor Im going to give their Xtralix range a try as they don't seem to carry the full range

of Xtracolors they once did!. Having not used acrylics before Im in need of advice.Can they be thinned with water for spraying?, do

they need a primer?,can they be used on the same model as in a camo scheme with enamels or do they react with each other?

and lastly will water blown through the airbrush clean it, or would it need something stronger, like meths?, which is an excellent cleaner.

[Tomjw]

I can't advise specifically for Xtracrylics because I've never used them, but I do use Gunze and Tamiya. You always should prime a surface for acrylic paints. In addition, use a dedicated cleaner for your airbrush. I use Revell Airbrush cleaner for all acrylics except Vallejo (I use Vallejo's own brand airbrush cleaner for those).

Hth

Tom.

[Pat C]

Don - I thin Xtracrylics with a few drops of IPA and a few drops of water, and I clean with IPA. Have a few cotton buds ready when spraying as I find Xtracrylics do tend to clog the tip and spraying them is more an art than a science. No problem spraying acrylics on top of enamels and vice versa, provided that the bottom coat is dry. Remember some paints can take some time to dry even when dry to the touch.

Pat

[Don149]

Thanks fellas!, Pat, excuse my ignorance in this street but what is IPA ?. Would Humbrol No 1 primer (enamel) be suitable, as I have this in stock?.

A slight hiccup in my first post, 60 years should have read 70!. Its the MK 1 computer playing up.

[Housesparrow]

Water alone won't properly clean an airbrush when used with acrylics (not once the paint has started to dry).

You can mix airbrush cleaner and a little water to try cut down the cost of airbrush-cleaning-liquid a little.

You can/should use a brush to better clean the airbrush cup, after having added some cleaner + water if any. I think using a brush is easier than simply trying to wipe the cup clean with a piece of paper towel.

For cleaning the nozzle, I use a dental brush thingy, I place a drop of airbrush cleaner on that thing, and stick it into the Iwata self centering nozzle, and I know it won't even reach the nozzle opening, cleaning instead the great cavity of that particular type of nozzle. It seems to me, that my fragile nozzle opening, never really gets dirty. If the nozzle opening ever gets dirty, I like to use paper points size 20 to carefully clean the nozzle opening.

[Pat C]

Thanks fellas!, Pat, excuse my ignorance in this street but what is IPA ?. Would Humbrol No 1 primer (enamel) be suitable, as I have this in stock?.

A slight hiccup in my first post, 60 years should have read 70!. Its the MK 1 computer playing up.

Hi Don - in this case IPA stands for Isopropyl Alchohol as opposed to India Pale Ale !!! You can buy the former at chemists or online in 500ml plastic bottles. Commonly known as rubbing alchohol. It thins the paint, but does reduce the drying time so you may find the tip clogs. I find water alone makes the paint too thin so it pools on the surface. So I add a bit of both!

Pat

[Don149]

Again, thanks. I will take the advice given.

Don.

[Murdo]

The wee dental brushes Housesparrow mentions are invaluable for cleaning airbrushes. You can pick them up in most supermarkets, any chemist, poundshop etc.

[viscount806x]

Good luck Don and don't forget that acrylics come in different guises, the tougher ones like Mr Hobby and Tamiya seem to have an alcohol (IPA) content and may be thinned with same.

At the risk of banging on repeatedly about it, may I point out the thinners compatibility chart for various paints (includes enamels) here:

http://www.little-cars.co.uk/workbench49.pdf

The more delicate and easily damaged ones (when on the model) include Xtracrylix and Vallejo. You can toughen them up a bit by adding an american product called Golden GAC200. Expensive but you do get a large bottle which is probably several lifetimes worth. I got mine on Ebay, the same source will get you a litre of IPA for a very reasonable sum. As well as thinning & cleaning up paints (some but not all - see chart referred to above), it also comes in handy for sterilising my respirator mask and other stuff too (e.g. ear plugs).

Cheers, Nige B

[Don149]

Thanks for the chart Nige. For the Xtracrylix Im going to use I have the distilled water and the screen wash so that is handy!.,

The model has to be built first,(HK Do 335) but in the meantime I can practice on some unwanted 1/48 ones from the stash.

Don.

[viscount806x]

Thanks for the chart Nige. For the Xtracrylix Im going to use I have the distilled water and the screen wash so that is handy!.,

The model has to be built first,(HK Do 335) but in the meantime I can practice on some unwanted 1/48 ones from the stash.

Don.

Chart courtesy of Littlecars Don but you are welcome anyway. I have a plasticised printout sitting in my paint drawer. A little addendum to the chart is that Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner is an excellent thinner for Vallejo, Xtracolour and Lifecolor paint. I've never had much luck myself with screenwash, compatibilty issues I imagine. Thinning with water too can be a bit of a knife edge, too much and it doesn't stick, too little and, well, it's too little! Advantages of using a thinner with a small chemical content over straight water is that evaporation of the sprayed on coat will be assisted slightly.

There are many more experienced acrylic users than me on BM so hopefully more tips will be forthcoming.

Cheers, Nige

[DaveCromie]

Hi Don

good luck with the Xtracrylic paints, I sincerely hope you have a better time with them than I did. I loved Xtracolour Enamels for their range and their accuracy (to my eyes at least!). However, the smell wasn't family friendly and it is too cold and wet here in Scotland to airbrush out of doors so I moved to their acrylics and airbrushed at an open window - no complaints re smells from SWMBO but still not the best painting environment.

I had real difficulties getting them to thin consistently; I tried water as per their instructions, I tried water/IPA, I tried neat IPA and I even tried their own brand thinners. Not one of these methods worked the same way twice in a row. I was wery upset as I really liked the finish they gave on the very rare occasion I managed to get things right. In the end I defected to Tamiya and yes, I do have to mix certain shades up but I do this in bulk using some nice simple formulae and I have what seems to be a perfect ratio of paint/thinners/flow improvers that works every time (coming up for 3 years now and no glitches).

For what it is worth my ratio is 10ml Tamiya Acrylic paint, 5 ml Tamia X-20A Acrylic Thinner and 2.5ml Windsor & Newton Flow Enhancer should you want to give it a bash. Oh, and it cleans out of my airbrush with a blast of neat Thinners between colours and a decent strip down and clean after each session too, so nothing overly arduous there either!

All the best

DC

[Doc72]

I mainly use Tamiya acrylics and for many years thinned them with pure ethanol/alcohol and used it also for cleaning the airbrush. It works reasonably well but the airbrush suffered from frequent clogging which I somehow accepted as inevitably.

Only recently and following this youtube tutorial (

) I switched to a home-brew mixture of IPA, (distilled) water and Windsor & Newton Flow Improver. IIRC, the tutorial recommends a IPA/water ratio of 33/66, but I use it the other way round with 66% IPA and 33% water. (Take care that the IPA your are buying at the pharmacy might already be thinned down to 70% or so). This home-brew does not clog the airbrush and dries more smoothly because it dries slower. The downside is that it is more runny. If I want to work with very thin paint, I still add ethanol to the mixture because it seems to evaporate the fastest.

I think the trick with thinner is the following: You have to adjust the volatility according to your preferences, the paint job, type of airbrush, air humidity and so on. If the thinner is too volatile, it will evaporate in the nozzle or on the needle and the airbrush will be clogged. It will also dry on the surface very fast which can result in a rough, matte finish. If the volatility is too low, the paint will not set on the model immediately and will be runny creating spider webs (you know: when the air pressure pushes the paint in all directions). So you just have to choose your way between both extremes. Ethanol and IPA are very volatile and evaporate fast while water on the other side evaporates slower. Therefore, the thinner can be mixed to fit best to your preferences or requirements. However, in order to avoid the water to form droplets or puddles on the model its surface tension has to be broken. This what the Flow Improver does (or any detergent but dedicated Flow Improver might be better for paints).

I still don’t know if IPA is in any way superior to ethanol (which is easier to obtain). I just use it nowadays because it seems to work with other people. The airbrush is still cleaned with ethanol because it is cheap, aggressive to the paint and probably less hazardous than many other chemicals on the modelling desk.