Mixing Paints for Air Brushing

Well, this is no exact science. Just a little trial and error with practice. Keep in mind, the paint should be the consistency of skim milk. This will put you at around 60% paint and 40% thinner, give or take. In some cases, I may do a 50/50 mix. It depends on the paint brand as well. Some are thicker than others which require a little more thinning. I use disposable incremented mixing cups to mix with. They are not hard to find. Try your LHS or r/c shop. Polly Scale and MM are about the same thickness and are thinner than Tamiya. So, Tamiya will need a little more thinning. Polly Scale and MM claim you can spray right out of the bottle but that's not the case. They need thorough mixing and thinning. Hope this helps...

Andy

Plastic Pipets  are the best/easiest/least messy way I have found to quickly mix paint.

I get packs of 100 from Carolina sciense supplies:

http://www.carolina.com/product/equipment+and+supplies/measuring+equipment/pipets/microchemistry+pipets%2C+micro-tip%2C+overall+length+5+3-4%22%2C+capacity+5.0+ml%2C+pk+100.do?sortby=ourPicks

Item numbers 736990 & 736988 are the most usefu.

Also pick up some "Mix & Save" containers (about $2.00 per pack) at you local Michaels craft store. They are small plastic cups with sealable lids that are great for mixing small amounts of paint and keeping them fresh for days.

http://www.craftsetc.com/store/item.aspx?dep=50&cat=2&subcat=57&IsOnSale=0&IsFeatured=0&IsNew=0&ItemId=79252

Just transfer some thinner to one of the cups with your pipet, then transfer some paint. To mix the paint and thinner--use the pipet. Draw the paint/thinner in and out of the pipet 4 or 5 times and that should mix it completely. Now just use the pipet one more time to transfer the paint to the airbrush. For acrylics, I usually keep a few baby jars near by (one filled with warm soapy water and one with rubbing alcohol) and use them to flush the paint out of the pipet as soon as I am doing mixing the pain. I can reuse the same pipet numerous times this way.

You could look into using syringes.

I use the "baby syringes" that have no needle and hold up to 10 mL or so.  However I've been mixing 90+ mL of paint at a time.

Bgrigg wrote:

I use my Mark I eyeball mostly...

He, he, he...

Pipets are great, however I don't use 'em. My technique is to use the end of one of my paint brushes. I "dip and drop" ...let the paint drop into a container for mixing and add water (or thinner) the same way. I broke down and bought some jars that fit my airbrush container lid.

Many times I don't need that much paint. When I use the little airbrushing cup, I mix my paint directly in it. I use a box nail with a bent head to swirl and mix it up. (submerge the nail head and twirl it). Simple & easy!

The new brand of acrylic that I swerved into comes in dropper bottles and I'm starting to really like it packaged that way. "Reaper Master" is what Viking Hobby (Sacramento California U.S.A.) replaced their line of Polly Scale with. I like it quite a bit. 

Glass eyedroppers from the drug store work great and they are easy to clean.