Mineral Spirits to thin MM Enamels (airbrushing)?

Hi tcepilot,

 As a rule of thumb,its always best to use the thinner that is made by the company that make's the paint. Testor's paint,Testor's thinner ect. I have read on some forums of bad paint/thinner mixture's gumming up the inside of the airbrush,some so bad that the airbrush was ruined. HTH.

Definitely use the Testors thinner and only use the mineral spirits to clean the airbrush. I found that the paint congeals with mineral spirits. You could also experiment with laquer thinner. I primarily use that as the final spray through my airbrush but have used it as a thinner in a pinch. If you use the laquer, don't return left over paint to the bottle.

I use generic hardware store paint thinner for all my clean up with Testors paints. But, for thinning for airbrushing, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Testors airbrush thinner. That stuff works great with all enamel paints for airbrushing...

Roger that!  Use Testor's thinner- the cost difference is neglible, considering the amount you will use thinning paint for airbrushing.

I have found some generic paint thinners really cruddy.  By that I mean they have dissolved solids in them.  They are a milky white in appearance.  So now I hold out for cans labeled specifically as mineral spirits or turpentine.  Since I began using these two materials I have had no real problems.

I will say the stuff sold by Testors as "airbrush thinner" gave me the best results, but I find it hard to find that stuff any more, so I have resorted to hardware store thinner. I find it works okay, just not quite as good, especially on gloss surfaces.

If you want the best buy in thinner,automotive "medium" enamel reducer will walk the dog. It normally comes in gallon cans but there might be a smaller size. Compare what you pay for Testors thinner to automotive ounce per ounce. Me thinks Testors is doing well with their paint line.

For equipment clean up, cheap WalMart type laquer thinner works great. Also works great for enamel thinner too.

A gallon of laquer thinner at a "Lowes" will run about the same as a gallon of auto enamel reducer.