The SAAF Forum

H2O!

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http://saafinscale.blogspot.com/

Agree.
I just used alcohol with my Model Master acrylic, it dries faster than water.

Okay thanks .

And in what ratio/parts ?

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The sky is not the limit...
There is no limit...

From what I have read around the net, people are having varied results thinning Tamiya acrylics with water, from good to bad. It would seem that up to 1:2 (water:Tamiya acrylic) is acceptable, but with more thinning than that the paint apparently does not mix well.

Other suggestions to use with the Tamiya Acrylics are methylated spirits and isopropyl alcohol. I think some retarder is then also required.

Personally I use the Tamiya Lacquer thinner after reading a thread on FSM forums (I think) about it. A letter from Tamiya was quoted where a representative stated that the lacquer thinner was meant to be an improvement on the acrylic thinner (and since you don't get Tamiya lacquer paints that I am aware of...). Please note that I only used it with the acrylic clear as I paint almost exclusively with enamels. It worked well though IMO.

Found this at Tamiya USA that supports the use of the lacquer thinner with the acrylics - http://www.tamiyausa.com/articles/feature.php?article-id=606

I agree with Cobusvj. As soon as you add more water than paint the paint becomes grainy and don't mix well. I've used Tamiya lacquer thinners as well. It works well but be careful. The same amount of lacquer thinner thins the paint much more than Acrylic thinner.

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http://saafinscale.blogspot.com/

I had bad experiances with mixing Tamiya acrylics with water, it became unusable, I changed to normal Lacquer thinners which works fine and recently used the very nice Tamiya Lacquer thinner with great results

Okay great... So normal lacquer thinners would work...

Will try a little water also just to see...

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The sky is not the limit...
There is no limit...

Why take a chance? Just get the Tamiya Lacquer Thinner

The large bottle should go far...

Cost is my issue...

What's the price like ?

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The sky is not the limit...
There is no limit...

R60 from Hobbytech.

I defer to Drifter on the price, I can only recall that it is less than R100 for a 250ml bottle. That goes a long way. And is brilliant for cleaning an airbrush.

Remember using other lacquer thinners will be like experimenting, it may or may not go well whereas using the Tamiya lacquer thinner is using a product designed to be used with Tamiya acrylics so worth the cost IMO.

The brand name hobby paint thinners are the best for thinning paints, no experimenting etc. But are pricey.
If I have some paint drying up in a paint pot, I make sure I'm using a thinner that works in the long run.
The reason I say that is, in the past I have used a thinner that works well when spray painting, but if it is mixed with the paint in a pot, a week later you find the paint turning into gum.
I can't get thinner to maintaining my Humbrol paints, I asked Humbrol, and was told to use "White mineral spirits", so I bought a litre of that.
I failed to save my 6 bottles of Scaleworx paints that I bought in SA, I put small amounts of paint in a small jar and tried different products I could find in Canada, they all turned into gum. So my Scaleworx paints dried up. Oh well.

I head off to the hardware store and purchase 1 litre on alcohol or lacquer thinner, pay half of what they are asking for 50ml of brand name hobby product, and use it for thinning the paint as required, and use it liberally when cleaning brushes and spary gun.

If you bought lacquer thinners from the hardware store, would it go to waste if it did not work out for thinning paints for air brudhing? Could you use it for cleaning?

Finally got around to painting the exhausts..

First a layer of Alclad steel, then accents with alclad burnt iron. On top of that Vallejo acrylic washes of blue and grey..

Thanks lads!

Here's an overview on how I did this..

Step 1: Apply Alclad steel

Step 2: Apply Alclad burnt iron thinly over the entire surface, only tinting the steel, then more directly applied to the elbows and where the exhaust is bolted to the manifold

Step 3: Brush on some blue wash near the manifolds

Step 4: Brush on some (diluted) pale grey wash over the entire surface

Simples

Great post on the exhaust manifold painting! Of interest, as I recall, the crankcases on the Spamcans were painted in gloss paints. I think that is often the case? The gloss engine crankcase, with Matt cylinder barrels and detailing, looks interesting and as I recall from the Harvard "Praat en Weetnies" (Weetnie wanner hy gaan ophou Praat....dan sweet jy!) was how they looked? However, the job you have done on the Skyraider engine is brliiliant!