Airbrushed Tamiya paint question

Hi!

 On another tangent.

     I have about nine or ten of these. I didone thing that makes them POP! I removed all the plastic molded on rails. It actually makes it look like both a different ship and a bigger one.

I thin Tamiya X series acrylics with Mr Leveling Thinner mixed 50-50 as a starting point. It usually sprays fine there but sometimes I've seen where a bit more thinner is a good thing.

I've also used Tamiya lacquer thinner, thinned the same ratio as with MLT. The difference is after the last coat is on, I then fill the airbrush with medium dry hardware store LT and give it a good misting down. This levels the finish much as MLT does. It's an old school trick but works pretty well with Tamiya acrylic and lacquers.

Pressure 18-20 psi for the acrylic works for me. Thats the working pressure not static. So with air flowing in other words.I don't recall ever shooting Tamiya X at less than 18psi and even have shot it at 23.

Its hard to tell from the pictures, but here it is.  I also stripped and re-sprayed the decks.

and applied some decal film solution

Mrchntmarine

So, as a follow up - i did not strip - i saved that part for the wheel house deck parts!!  So i did mix a batch of a little thinner Tamiya semi-gloss & Mr color thinner and light coated again.  Its better.  Good enough for me i think.  Hoping that the few left patches, will disappear when clear coated.  But if not, itll be ok.  It did improve. Ad

Cool!  Glad you got it to look better for you.  I think you're on the right track with clearcoating fixing the rest of the slight differences in those patches.  Just build that up with really light passes.  Recently, I had part of my current project that I couldn't get masked as well as I would have liked to, so I tried hand-brushing with Testors square bottles to fill in the little areas of overspray between the laquer colors I was using.  When I was done, I tried putting a clearcoat over all of it to blend the Testors in with the surrounding area and try to hide the extra thickness of the brushed on paint.  It worked like a champ.  It makes it look like I'm some kind of master masker, but I cheated a little bit.

I was going cross-eyed trying to get all of the BB code straight for putting quotes in to respond to your previous post, so I'll just try to respond the best I can here:

It sounds like you have the right consistency of paint.  The "skim milk" saying...so the paint quickly runs down the side of the cup.

On your next thing that you paint, you might try mixing the paint and thinner in a separate cup and pouring it in to see what kind of results you get.  I have never really been able to get consistent results by mixing directly in the airbrush cup, so I started using those little paper bathroom cups.  Its just easier to get a more complete, consistent mix of the paint doing it that way.

I can't really give you good feedback on your pressure setting, since it looks like you're using an internal-mix airbrush.  But, for what I do with my external-mix, I usually have mine set to about 20 PSI.  I'll sometimes dial that down as low as 10 PSI when I need to paint inside a small, enclosed area...the lower pressure keeps the paint from swirling and depositing in a rough texture.  On flat surfaces though, it lays down a lot nicer at 20 PSI.

ctruss53

Which direction did you paint it?

Short ways or long ways?  It kind of looks like it is just uneven because you went across it the short way. And if this is the case paint it the long way and that might fix it. Or add two coats in a criss cross pattern. One coat diagonally one way and then another coat diagonally the other way.

 

I went bow - stern , vice versa, all longways. 

oldermodelguy

Which Tamiya line of paint are you using ? Give numbers please.

 

Sorry, my bad...  Tamiya Acrylic semi-gloss black, X-18.  On the initial shoot i had thinned some older paint which was thick and not much left, but enough, w/ Tamiya Lacquer Thinner.  So maybe old paint had something to do with it too - but thinking it wss more of a pressure , too close issue with airbrush.  The 2nd try was with new paint and Mr Color Levelling.  Ill try & get a pic up, but like the 1st pic its hard to show up in the image.

Eaglecash867

If it were me.  I'd definitely strip it. 

So, as a follow up - i did not strip - i saved that part for the wheel house deck parts!!  So i did mix a batch of a little thinner Tamiya semi-gloss & Mr color thinner and light coated again.  Its better.  Good enough for me i think.  Hoping that the few left patches, will disappear when clear coated.  But if not, itll be ok.  It did improve.

Eaglecash867

What's the consistency of your paint like?

Sorry i missed this quesion , then w/o email notifications for thre rest, oh well...  I dislike the skim milk saying, but thats what i shoot for.

Eaglecash867

Are you mixing the paint and thinner in the airbrush cup, or are you mixing it first and then pouring it in?

I mix in the cup.  1st putting in a little of whatever my thinner is, shoot it out then paint, thinner & mix w/ a brush

Eaglecash867

What's the consistency of your paint like?  Are you mixing the paint and thinner in the airbrush cup, or are you mixing it first and then pouring it in?  What pressure are you using when you paint?  If your pressure is too high, the air can come swirling around from the surface you're trying to paint and it really interferes with how it lays down.  Also wanted to ask if you're starting off with a light pass first and slowly building the thickness.  If your first pass is too thick, the paint can get pushed around into little globs and droplets because even if you have primer on your model, the paint always seems to prefer its own kind, so you have to give it a good foundation of lightly deposited "friends" for it to hang onto as you slow your passes down and gradually move in closer.

 

Eaglecash867

What pressure are you using when you paint? 

Ahh, now thats thr real tricky part not knowing if my guage is all that accurate.  If i recall correctly it was set at around 12psi - I THINK.  Now not sure as that was with Tamiya acrylic and since ive shot sone Model Color and lowere to 10psi w/ switching the tip, etc. to.33.  The Tamiya i shot with a .75.  I think i may have had too high pressure and maybe too close to the model also.  My lighting / set up is not the best and i struggle with that too.  Thanks for the help & sorry for the delay.  Wm.

Former professional airbrush artist here. Two possible culprits, your psi was to high and you were probably to far away from the piece. For gloss or semi gloss, you need to go low air pressure and be about 4-5 centimenters away.

Try this and I think you will get much better results. Thin your tamiya paint with Mr. Hobby leveling thinner at 50/50 paint to thinner, 15 psi, 4-5 centimenters, use a .2 or .3 needle setup. The paint will lay down smooth and leave a nice satin like finish (if it's a semi-gloss paint) or nice gloss look (if it's a gloss paint).

Which direction did you paint it?

Short ways or long ways?  It kind of looks like it is just uneven because you went across it the short way. And if this is the case paint it the long way and that might fix it. Or add two coats in a criss cross pattern. One coat diagonally one way and then another coat diagonally the other way.

patrick206

 

 

oldermodelguy

Which Tamiya line of paint are you using ? Give numbers please.

 

OMG, who is this question directed to?

 

"So i airbrushed Tamiya semi-gloss thinned with their laquer thinner.  The finish is weird - hard to describe and the pictures make it look somewhat worse than it is.  But, not sure what the cause of this is or if it will disappear when i clear coat with a semi gloss clear coat?"

Sorry abouot that, Patrick. To OP.

I'm assuming lacquer but I don't like to assume.

oldermodelguy

Which Tamiya line of paint are you using ? Give numbers please.

 

Which Tamiya line of paint are you using ? Give numbers please.

I have used Tamiya flats for several years, very little experience with other brands. But with all of them I have tried, I find the acrylics do best when highly thinned. With Tamiya I start at a 50/50 thinning ratio, I mostly use 71% IPA, then start doing test sprays to find the sweet spot for thinning.

Flat, semi gloss or gloss seem mostly the same to me, requiring the same thinning ratios and multiple coats.

Depending on the particular job, I usually end up at a 60-70% alcohol ratio. With the paint being that thin, I'm always mindful that the application will take several passes for workable coverage. But as fast as it sets up between coats, (seconds actually,) that really doesn't impede the process very much at all.

I find adequate lighting to be my best friend when airbrushing, investing a rather small amount in a good hobby light has been my greatest modeling tool. I recommend getting a supply of Tamiya, be sure to THOROUGHLY mix the ingredients when making a new test sample, then spray as many samples as needed to find what is a good, workable system for you.

Samples sprayed on paper and other soft surfaces don't replicate plastic model surfaces, so I recommend getting a supply of discarded plastic soft drink and juice jugs for spraying test samples, in a short time you'll find out a lot about airbrushing acrylics. Good luck with your efforts.

Patrick 

If it were me.  I'd definitely strip it.  Otherwise you could easily end up chasing your tail trying to fix what you've got...and it'll end up taking up a lot more time.  I just ended up doing exactly that on my current build because the paint work on the part I had painted didn't go as planned (mostly because I was trying to figure out how to color match the paint to the metallic silver decals I had put on).  A bath in isopropyl alcohol and a scrubbing with a cheap electric toothbrush is the stripping method I used for that.  It even gets the primer off (I use Tamiya Surface Primer).  Not sure if it'll take Stynylrez off also, but no harm in trying.  You can't really hurt anything with the alcohol.

Strip or roll with it??  I'm struggling. 

What's the consistency of your paint like?  Are you mixing the paint and thinner in the airbrush cup, or are you mixing it first and then pouring it in?  What pressure are you using when you paint?  If your pressure is too high, the air can come swirling around from the surface you're trying to paint and it really interferes with how it lays down.  Also wanted to ask if you're starting off with a light pass first and slowly building the thickness.  If your first pass is too thick, the paint can get pushed around into little globs and droplets because even if you have primer on your model, the paint always seems to prefer its own kind, so you have to give it a good foundation of lightly deposited "friends" for it to hang onto as you slow your passes down and gradually move in closer.

Never had that happen to me,but I have only used flat Tamiya,it does look like the orange peel effect