Golden Airbrush Medium

I've never tried the Golden's airbrush medium, I have the Liquitex. I notice two things with the Liquitex: first it's white before dry so it mutes your colors going on but dries ok. And secondly it will separate out from the paint if left sitting for not very long times. As a result I tend to use the LABM in one of my thinner blends I make up ( that or Aztek thinner become about 1/3 of the blend I make up and that replaces ipa/alcohol in my blend for paints that don't like alcohol). No complaints doing that, works fine.

Thanks for posting on the Goldens product. The nice thing about airbrush mediums is they don't break the bonding structure of the paints with over thinning.

HiDesertmodeler and oldermodelguy,

thanks for the info. Like many "vintage" modelers I have a stash of old Model Master enamels that I am working my way through. That being the case I will likely make another effort soon to learn the mysterious ways of airbrushing acrylics. My one and only attempt in the past was the old Acryl line and that was in a very dry/hot climate. That was a quick and less than successful adventure. Thanks to FSM and other forums I feel I am now a lot more educated about acrylics and there are also a lot more options available. I have hand brushed some of the Vallejo paints and thought they were great.

Back to the bench

HiDesertmodeler and oldermodelguy,

thanks for the info. Like many "vintage" modelers I have a stash of old Model Master enamels that I am working my way through. That being the case I will likely make another effort soon to learn the mysterious ways of airbrushing acrylics. My one and only attempt in the past was the old Acryl line and that was in a very dry/hot climate. That was a quick and less than successful adventure. Thanks to FSM and other forums I feel I am now a lot more educated about acrylics and there are also a lot more options available. I have hand brushed some of the Vallejo paints and thought they were great.

 

Well about 3-1/2 years ago I decided to embrace acrylics or at least make headway with them. One of the first conquests was to have victory over MM Acryl lol ! Now I can say that I pretty much like it, it works, it sticks and dries to a decent rendition of the colors suggested to be ( course who knows how long it will be around for). Good pigment load too. What I don't care for is the wet color rendition, you got to see it dry to know what you got over given primers etc.. The very first thing I learned about Acryl and really acrylics in general but Acryl exagerates the problem, is you got have good primer on the model. MM Acryl sticks to virtually nothing else reliably but to primer like welded iron in my experience. The second thing I learned is one of my home brew thinners actually works better in it than MM's own thinner. It just behaves more like "real" paint ( ya I'm from the enamel and lacquer generation too ).

Non the less, in the end the only way we gain victory over acrylic paints is by using them. Take tips and apply. Without application we only read the tips and maybe assume some things. Hands on we learn and get it working, before that we hope it will work or wonder but we have no practical experience in it.......

I also tried Liquitex but it didn't work well.  Golden Airbrush Medium is a winner for my acrylic paints and in our dry arid environmen.

HighDesertmodeler

I also tried Liquitex but it didn't work well.  Golden Airbrush Medium is a winner for my acrylic paints and in our dry arid environmen.

 

Good to know. The Liquitex is straight medium I believe, thus why it works in my own blend where I add flow aid and retarder. The Goldens I read about today, it says it has those added ingredients already. I'll order in a small bottle and test it out. No loss here because I have other Liquitex products and paints too, so if the Goldens is a win I still have a use for the Liquitex.

oldermodelguy

Non the less, in the end the only way we gain victory over acrylic paints is by using them. Take tips and apply. Without application we only read the tips and maybe assume some things. Hands on we learn and get it working, before that we hope it will work or wonder but we have no practical experience in it.......

Very true. I hope to have my spraying area set up soon and can start the hands on process in earnest. It's always been fascinating to me that what paint brands and processes work like gang busters for some, others will really hate. I guess paint formulations and airbrushes almost have a personality like we do and it's often just a matter of finding that right combination that meshes well for each individual. As the years go by one thing that becomes more important for me is to write down what combinations I try. It would be typical for me to find the super, ultimate, magic combination then sleep once and erase the memory of what I did

Very well put!

You're spot on when it comes to documenting.  I have my paint formulas/thinner down to the specific airbrush in use.  The list is getting too long.  Sometimes I yearn for the simplicity of just using Tamiya...it sprays very easily out of all my airbrushes with a tweak here and there for thinner to paint (usually 3 or 4:1 thinner to paint (I like using Mr Hobby Aqueous thinner rather than X20A)).