Acrylic paints

If you check drugstores and grocery stores you usually can find distilled water. If not, then many times isopropyl alcohol will give good results. And if they have clean filtered drinking water, you can de-chlorinate it by letting it sit and breathe for an hour or so. Also each acrylic paint maker has a dedicated thinner, and that often gives the best results.

I use Testors thinner for all acrylics... you can oder it from testors on-line and a little goes a long way.

I use about 20-30% thinner, but it depends on your air-brush, the pressure,a nd the finish you want. SO you'll have to experiment some.

http://www.naplak.com/modeling/

I like to use a combination of isopropyl and distilled water. Both are inexpensive unlike name brand acrylic thinners.Make sure you get the 99% isopropyl, do not use a lower percentage. Some drugstores keep the 99% behind the counter. Iso also works great for cleaning your equiptment afterwards.

Regarding consistency I use milk consistency with very good results. I mix 40-60% paint with 60-40% thinner (I use Tamiya for both paint and thinner), you should try other ratios depending on the paints and thinners you use.

QUOTE: Originally posted by jcarlberg If you check drugstores and grocery stores you usually can find distilled water. If not, then many times isopropyl alcohol will give good results. And if they have clean filtered drinking water, you can de-chlorinate it by letting it sit and breathe for an hour or so. Also each acrylic paint maker has a dedicated thinner, and that often gives the best results.

I just mixed alcohol with ordinary tap (but filtered) water. can I still dechlorinate it after mixing with alcohol?

While we're at it, does anyone out there use Testor's Acryl paints? When Tamiya paints (my former favorite) skyrocketted locally in price a few years ago, I made the switch to the then-cheaper Acryl line. They seem to be the strangest paint on the market. While Testor's states the Acryl line is "water washable" and "non-toxic" it also contains "glycol ethers"???? Any chemists here? And, I find that neither water, nor Testor's own Acryl Cleaner nor Thinner really cleans their own paint. The stuff dries too fast, IMHO, even faster than Tamiya's but now I've collected a hobbystore's inventory worth of the stuff. Not so bright on my part, especially with their current pricing trend up here. Anyone else using Acryl paints?