is there rules in painting ??? What type is GUNZE?

to EVERYBODY,

Thanks to your wonderful inputs on GUNZE paints.

Buddha

Like many makers, Gunze Sangyo has both acrylic and solvent based paint lines. The "acqueous" colors are distributed in the USA, but they also make the Mr. Color enamel line, which are solvent based. In my experience, Gunze acrylics are very touchy about thinners and clear coats, and I can only recommend using their thinners and clear coats with their paint, which is of very high quality.

I don't generally use acrylics myself, but a pal uses them almost exclusively. He's had very little trouble with using alcohol as a thinner for most any acrylic he's tried.

He did run into one snag recently. He thinned Model Master Acrylic Clear Flat with alcohol and it separated on the model. It went on okay, but when he came back to put another coat on, it had separated and looked as though it had cracked. (Didn't actually crack, that's just the way it looked.)

I used Gunze paints sometime back before I became BAE. (born-again enamel) I had nothing but trouble with 'em.

If you have doubts about any paint/thinner combination, try it out on a scrap model first.

Fade to Black...

Alcohol works okay with most all Acrylics (haven't found one it doesn't work with). But I try to always use the name brand thinner... just in case. For the cost of the model, and the time involved, the price of branded thinner does not seem to be much of an addition.

TO: Rick

Thanks for the tip.

Gunze is an acrylic paint but not all acrylics are compatible with all thinners. You don't often run into this problem with petroleum based paints as enamels can be thinned with lacquer thinner for example. If you use the thinner from the same manufacturer as the paint you will usually be OK. When mixing manufacturers as you did, you always want to test a sample first. The goo you describe is pretty typical of an acrylic mixed with an incompatible thinner. I don't use acrylics much but when I do I usually try distilled water or alcohol as a thinner. By the way, for a clear gloss you should try Future floor finish which is an acrylic but can be airbrushed unthinned and cleaned up with alcohol.

Rick