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What to use for enamal thinners?

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  • Member since
    January 2009
What to use for enamal thinners?
Posted by Antony Wright on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:55 PM

I know that humbrol recomend that you use their brand of thinners for their enamals and Im sure that most of the other brands would say the same. But is there something cheaper that will do the job just as good? I had thought of white spirits whichi I would use with oils but not sure about using it with enamals. Bearing in mind that I want it to thin the paint for airbrushing as well as cleaning the brushes.

 

thanks

 

  • Member since
    April 2009
  • From: Longmont, Colorado
Posted by Cadet Chuck on Thursday, February 17, 2011 1:58 PM

Testor's sells an airbrush thinner (in a black can) recommended for their enamels.  I always use it with great success.  I have not tried it with other brand enamels, however.  I would recommend an experimental test if you want to use it with another brand of enamel, but I bet it would work fine.

Gimme a pigfoot, and a bottle of beer...

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Western North Carolina
Posted by Tojo72 on Thursday, February 17, 2011 2:05 PM

mineral spirits works

  • Member since
    July 2009
Posted by AlterEcho on Friday, February 18, 2011 10:45 PM

When I first started back to modeling I used the manufacturers thinner to allow for solving issues. Once I got over that hump i started to use other thinners. With Model Master enamels I bought my mineral spirits from Walmart, which was a large jug. This worked fine and I also saved a ton of money.

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Sonora Desert
Posted by stikpusher on Saturday, February 19, 2011 1:38 AM

I like Testors Universal airbrush thinner for airbrushing enamels. It works great with Testors , XtraColour and Humbrol. But I only use that for thinning the paint. It gives the paint more "tooth" for grabbing on to the plastic or resin. For clean up on enamels I use generic paint thinner from the hardware store.

 

F is for FIRE, That burns down the whole town!

U is for URANIUM... BOMBS!

N is for NO SURVIVORS...

       - Plankton

LSM

 

  • Member since
    January 2009
Posted by Antony Wright on Saturday, February 19, 2011 2:03 AM

Thanks guys. I only returned to modeling a couple of years back after a very lengthy absence (due to having a family etc). So I've been using the not so cheap thinners supplied by huimbrol (which is the only one available locally). Ive now gotten to the point where I wanted cheaper alternatives that would work. I done some checking and what you guys call mineral spirits in the USA is called white spirits here in the UK so I shall go and get some and have a play with that for a while see how it wrks out.

  • Member since
    July 2009
Posted by AlterEcho on Saturday, February 19, 2011 12:40 PM

Yeah, the conversion between names threw me off, at first. My favorite modellers are either EU or UK and they would always refer to white spirits. When I started shopping for it, sales people would give me the strangest looks.

Does make you wonder why the 'states' changed the name.

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