Matching paint to thinners

[Sparkie]

I've found lots of posts on various sites recommending what thinners to use with what paints either off the shelf or home brew, but it there a consolidated list or matrix anywhere that I can reference?

[dnl42]

Perhaps identify the paint brands of interest to avoid uninteresting replies...which may well include this one. 

 

A couple of rows in such a table, in order of my preference

 

Mr Color, Mr Surfacerr, &etc.: Mr Color Leveling Thinner

Colourcoats: Mr Color Leveling Thinner

Humbrol: Humbrol thinner

Tamiya: Tamiya thinner

Microscale Industries Micro Flat, Micro Satin: Water

The Army Painter Warpaints: Water (I only use this for brush painting small details, and yes, I do thin for brush painting)

 

I use hardware store lacquer (cellulose) thinner for cleaning my airbrush.

 

Don't even think about using hardware store lacquer (cellulose) thinner to clean your airbrush after spraying Vallejo. Never. Don't do it. Turns into a nasty gel. One of several reasons I resoundingly rejected Vallejo paints. To be fair, others love the stuff.

 

In case you're looking for paint suggestions, I find Mr Color to be an outstanding paint. When applied properly, it produces an amazingly smooth and thin coat.

 

HTH

-- 

dnl

Edited October 19, 2019 by dnl42
Add msI clears

[Mark Harmsworth]

Do you have a preference for type of paint - acrylics or enamels?

[Space Ranger]

Here's my list:

 

All paint: Use manufacturer's recommended thinner.

[Sparkie]

May have to expand on this a bit like @dnl42mentioned

 

At the minutes i've mostly Humbrol Enamels used with a hairy stick, but will be getting an airbrush in the next few weeks so will give them a go, but will inevitably start looking at other types 

 

Everyone will always have their own preference in brands for paint etc, but I was thinking if there was a matrix that would list out say the alcohol based acrylics that would be happy with IPA such as Tamiya, so if I wanted to try out another brand, I could use the same type of thinners rather than stocking up on the manufacturers own for each one as @Space Ranger says, which is what I am using for the Humbrols

 

I say IPA by the way as i've a load of it already used for cleaning electronics etc, so anything happy with IPA would be the ideal starting point as means less cost while i play around with the airbrush

[bmwh548]

Tamiya's acrylics and Mr. Hobby's acrylics work fine with IPA. 

Mr. Leveling Thinner is almost universal. I've used it successfully on Tamiya, Mr. Hobby/Mr. Color, Revell's enamels, Green Stuff's acrylics, Model Master's enamels... Do not use it with true waterbased acrylics, they'll gunk up. Tried it with Humbrol enamels and it doesn't like it, the paint went all grainy. 

General rule of thumb: if you see a flammable label on the pot there's a very good chance it will work with MLT, however just to be on the safe side always make a small batch in a transparent cup to check what happens with the paint.

Automotive lacquer thinner is also a good general thinner if you don't mind the smell. Just be careful as it's very aggressive with styrene, make sure you don't pool up on the model.

[TimB]

FWIW, I just sprayed Humbrol Matt Black with Gunze Mr Levelling... worked a treat.

 

Regards

 

Tim

[bmwh548]

Maybe we have tins from different factories? I know they made changes to the paint several times.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

14 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

Here's my list:

 

All paint: Use manufacturer's recommended thinner.

This is the correct answer...

11 hours ago, bmwh548 said:

Maybe we have tins from different factories? I know they made changes to the paint several times.

... because different discreet pigments can react differently to different thinners, not only binders. There is no safe blanket statement which can be made about thinners other than that the manufacturer has to get their recommendation correct.

[Sparkie]

Some good advice here, thanks

 

The moral of the story seems to be Manufacturers own thinners will work, for anything else, test it and see as it could change from batch to batch even

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

4 hours ago, Sparkie said:

Some good advice here, thanks

 

The moral of the story seems to be Manufacturers own thinners will work, for anything else, test it and see as it could change from batch to batch even

 

 

More or less. Batch to batch things shouldn't change. We will be consistent in how we manufacture until some factor causes a change. E.g. if a particular commercially available blue pigment becomes unavailable and we need to recreate the formula to use another which requires different balancing with red or green.

 

I think (and this comes from some of the bizarre ideas that come up on the subject of variance one might see in real paint) that many not directly involved in manufacture have a romantic idea of a guy with a cigarette in his mouth making paint subjectively adding all sorts of pigments like a witch adding frogs legs and dragon scales to a cauldron.

 

The reality is much less fun (but also eliminates most of what casual observers imagine the variance possibilities are). Most real paints use a clear-ish binder, colourless pigment extenders to some degree, white to add opacity in most cases and then 2 or 3 specific tinting pigments to arrive at the final colour. Maybe a tweak with a very small measure of something else for balance.

 

In summary, unless there's a very strong reason to revise the formulation, each batch of the same paint will feature exactly the same type of pigments. The only variance would be measuring margin of error on those specific ones.

 

As an example of what I meant above, I think all of our paints are safe to use with white spirit, turpentine, naptha (which we recommend for various good reasons) and cellulose thinners, but our RAL2005 day-glow orange has a pigment unique to it that curdles for want of a more illustrative description if exposed to cellulose thinner.

 

If a particular batch of paint contained a new pigment not in other batches of the same colour, something drastic has happened. It would be more difficult to achieve that than to just do it properly. Indeed modern paints are generally made on computerised paint mixers such that once we are happy that the dried sample hits the CIELAB target values, the history of how much of each pigment has been metered in to that can is saved and next time a batch is produced the computer simply meters out exactly the same again (to within 1/192 of a fl.oz, for example).

 

Hope this clarifies. I realise there's a lot in there but I wanted to offer a more full explanation of my earlier comment

[lasermonkey]

I think I may have mentioned it before, but I would definitely recommend NOT using Bartoline's Premium Low Odour White Spirit to thin enamel paints. I tried it with Humbrol and Colourcoats and it turned both into a gloopy mess. This must be down to whatever has been done to the white spirit to reduce the odour, rather than a fault with the paints, as I have successfully thinned both with many different thinners, from cheap lighter fuel to more expensive, branded thinners. I have to say though, that my best results have been using the manufacturer's recommended thinners, particularly in terms of smoothness of finish and drying time.

 

Cheers,

Mark.

 

p.s. The aforementioned low odour white spirit is fine for cleaning paintbrushes.

[Space Ranger]

3 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

More or less. Batch to batch things shouldn't change. We will be consistent in how we manufacture until some factor causes a change. E.g. if a particular commercially available blue pigment becomes unavailable and we need to recreate the formula to use another which requires different balancing with red or green.

 

I think (and this comes from some of the bizarre ideas that come up on the subject of variance one might see in real paint) that many not directly involved in manufacture have a romantic idea of a guy with a cigarette in his mouth making paint subjectively adding all sorts of pigments like a witch adding frogs legs and dragon scales to a cauldron.

 

The reality is much less fun (but also eliminates most of what casual observers imagine the variance possibilities are). Most real paints use a clear-ish binder, colourless pigment extenders to some degree, white to add opacity in most cases and then 2 or 3 specific tinting pigments to arrive at the final colour. Maybe a tweak with a very small measure of something else for balance.

 

In summary, unless there's a very strong reason to revise the formulation, each batch of the same paint will feature exactly the same type of pigments. The only variance would be measuring margin of error on those specific ones.

 

As an example of what I meant above, I think all of our paints are safe to use with white spirit, turpentine, naptha (which we recommend for various good reasons) and cellulose thinners, but our RAL2005 day-glow orange has a pigment unique to it that curdles for want of a more illustrative description if exposed to cellulose thinner.

 

If a particular batch of paint contained a new pigment not in other batches of the same colour, something drastic has happened. It would be more difficult to achieve that than to just do it properly. Indeed modern paints are generally made on computerised paint mixers such that once we are happy that the dried sample hits the CIELAB target values, the history of how much of each pigment has been metered in to that can is saved and next time a batch is produced the computer simply meters out exactly the same again (to within 1/192 of a fl.oz, for example).

 

Hope this clarifies. I realise there's a lot in there but I wanted to offer a more full explanation of my earlier comment

An excellent explanation. Would you mind if I shared it on other forums I belong to? And while I have your attention, who is the current US distributor/retailer for Colourcoats enamels?

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 10/21/2019 at 5:04 PM, Space Ranger said:

An excellent explanation. Would you mind if I shared it on other forums I belong to? And while I have your attention, who is the current US distributor/retailer for Colourcoats enamels?

 

Be my guest

 

Retailers haven't ordered for a while but www.hbhobbies.com is back in touch and trying to get the funds together for a reorder. It's become harder because geopolitical uncertainty is affecting almost all honest business (speculators may be excepted on either count). The prospect of being slapped with a 25% tarriff etc will doubtless be a worry. We haven't heard from Warship Hobbies for a long time but their eBay store still appears active.

 

I have been somewhat amused by an American on another forum who seemed to morph from vocal advocate of our paint to personal critic of late on the basis that I haven't conducted a military invasion of the USA to forcibly land our product on a beach head. He doesn't seem to be able to mentally process the fact that we can't force businesses to buy it! 😕 Nor can we change the law and the postal/shipping industry's policies as a result of it, which is perhaps more to the point.

[stevehnz]

On 10/22/2019 at 1:36 AM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

of a guy with a cigarette in his mouth

 

On 10/22/2019 at 1:36 AM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

The only variance would be measuring margin of error on those specific ones.

Which wouldn't have anything to do wiv the guy wiv the fag in his mouth I 'spose.  

Steve.

[Paul J]

What about Barrettine white spirit? I use it in small drops with my Humbrol and it works Ok for cleaning up  but matt black ends up gloss if used to thin the paint.   Recently I was given a couple 5 litre containers, bottle of aviation grade white spirit... not tested it yet.

[Robert]

On Flory web site https://www.florymodels.org/vlog/2019/10/22/special-live-qampa-show-700pm-22nd-october-2019   there is a recent video where one of the contributors say how good Gunze SLT is good for a variety of alcohol and water based acrylics.

 

Regards

Robert