Model Master Acryl

Greg,

I use a 50/50 mixture of 70% isopropyl alcohol and filtered water to thin my Acryl.
I usually thin it 2:1 which seems to work well.
For clean-up I use a mixture of 2 parts filtered water, 1 part Windex and 1 part Simple Green, although I have also substituted the Simple Green with Castrol Super Clean and had pretty good results also. Sometimes the Acryl sticks to the cup and this cleaner doesn't seem to break it down as fast as I would like so when that happens I get out the old lacquer thinner and show that paint who's boss.
One thing I notice also is that the cleaner mixtures mentioned above, as well as MM Acryl cleaner, seem to break the paint down into clumps and they are sometimes difficult to get sprayed out of the cup if they don't break down enough.
This is where lacquer thinner shines as it breaks that paint down into small pigments like it should. It kind of defeats the purpose of having less toxic paints when you have to use lacquer thinner to clean them.
Of course I wouldn't consider Windex, Simple Green and Castrol Super Clean as being all that much "less toxic" as in an atomized form from the airbrush they are not good at all to breathe. I get asthma-like symptoms if I inhale that cleaner when spraying it out.
If I have to get out the MSA dual-cartridge respirator then I might as well be using enamels like the old days.

Has anyone else discovered a cleaner that works almost as well as lacquer but is less toxic? I wonder how straight Iso alcohol or denatured alcohol would work?
Hey Gip, what do you think professor?

Mike

MikeV,

I seem to remember a thread where you mentioned your thinning/ cleaning formula for Acryl, but I forget. Would you be so kind as to remind us (me) again? Thanks.

Greg,

That's great news my friend.
I have had pretty good success with Acryl mixed similar to what you mentioned, although I used Aqua-Flow retarder in mine.

Mike

Vicariously, this thread has just helped me in an emmergency situation this afternoon, as I ran out of MM Flat Black enamel and didn't have an opportunity to run to the hobby shop. I looked supiciously at the few bottles of MM Flat Black Acryl sitting on the shelf and decided, "hey, why not, lets give it a try." I read the previous posts and....sucess! I quickly ran some tests with different thinners and found that I had very good results using distilled water with a drop or two of *Golden Airbrush Medium added to the mix. Tamiya and MM Acryl round out my limited selection of acrylics. Thanks guys for the timely response to Jimj46167's post!

I use Tamiya thinner for all acryls except for Vallejo... I use thier brand for that... Tamiya thinner works great with Boyds, MM and Tamiya acrylics!

---edit---

I don't know if it works better and less tip dry because I've always used Tamiya thinner for this... somewhere along the line I started buying these really big bottles of Tamiya thinner and so I used it for whatever! On a recommendation of a respected modeller at the LHS I got the Vallejo thinner just for the Vallejo colors.. and like it more than the other paints. As long as it is thinned right I get little tip dry. (Vallejo has the exact ratio to use on their site)

jim, i don't know if this applies to your situation, but just as a reminder, you shouldn't be using over 15 or so pounds of air pressure when spraying most model paints. if you get up around 20 and greater, tip dry seems to exponentiate rapidly. i've used tamiya acrylics alot through 4 different airbrush manufacturer's (iwata being my favorite [that one was just for mikey]) and never had much problems with it. MM acryl and Polyscale seemed to both facilitate tip dry more readily than tamiya, but i never tried using tamiya brand thinner on MM acryl and Polyscale. i always used it with tamiya acrylics and it worked great everytime. just find a good thinning ratio that enables you to drop to around 15psi for general spraying, then even thinner and lower pressures for detail work. good luck. later.

ik use tamiya thinner for MM acryls. it works really well. nevr have too much of a problem. of course, the last time i used acryls, it was with my gasp aztek.

This is a common problem with acrylics and this is one reason why I always recommend the Omni series of airbrushes as well as the Anthem and 360.
They all have exposed needles so that you can literally pick the paint off the needle tip with your fingernails or use a Q-tip as was mentioned. If you get into the habit of doing that along with using retarder as MusicCity mentioned then you will eliminate a lot of the problems.

Mike

Jim: I have had good luck with MM Acryl Thinner. All it takes is a couple of drops added to your paint cup and it does help paint flow but does not always eliminate your problem. I will ditto what Music City said about cleaning the tip on a frequent basis.

Mike M

All acrylics tend to cause "Tip Dry" because they dry so quickly. I suspect you were using Tamiya thinner with their paint and it contains some retarder to slow down the drying time. You can get acrylic retarder at any good art supply store under Createx, Golden, and several other brand names. Add a couple of drops to your paint cup and it will help a lot.

What you use to thin the paint also has a big affect on how quickly it dries. Alcohol or Windex will cause it to dry more quickly whereas water will usually slow it down somewhat.

Personally I usually just ignore the problem. I've gotten into the habit of every time I sit my airbrush down I wipe the tip off with a Q-Tip moistened with water or thinner.