Thinner for enamels!

Absolutely. What you are buying at the hardware store as paint thinner is mineral spirits and fine for use with enamels. Just don't use it with acrylics!

I'd also suggest getting "odorless" mineral spirits, and be sure you have adequate ventilation.

I was just wondering if intensive use of thinner in my cheap plastic airbrush could damage it?  Here is what I have:

I have done it once so far and seemed not to damage anything!

I jsut checked the MSDS for Testors gloss white enamel. It contains VM&P naptha, mineral spirits, and xylene. Obviously, mineral spirits should not hurt your brush—unless the manual says "For Water-Soluble Paint Only." But I can't imagine Testors doing something like that!

But you were wise to ask. There are no stupid questions, only stupid people who don't ask them.

Call me pedantic but I always use a couple of drops of the manufactures recommended thinner for thinning the paint  in my a/b.  However I use hardware store Mineral Spirits for the clean up afterwards.

Cheers

Triarius wrote:

Absolutely. What you are buying at the hardware store as paint thinner is mineral spirits and fine for use with enamels. Just don't use it with acrylics! I'd also suggest getting "odorless" mineral spirits, and be sure you have adequate ventilation.

Sorry for butting in here with my question about acrylics. Are you saying we can dilute acrylics with testors thinner? I assume that is the same stuff as Tamiya sells in their small bottles?

/Lars

Homer wrote:

Sorry for butting in here with my question about acrylics. Are you saying we can dilute acrylics with testors thinner? I assume that is the same stuff as Tamiya sells in their small bottles? /Lars

NYET! NINE! NON! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Enamels—the smelly solvent based stuff—can be thinned (most of them) with mineral spirits or similar hydrocarbon solvents. If you use these with acrylics, you will almost certainly get a gooey mess.

Acrylics—the sometimes smelly aqueous stuff—can be thinned/cleaned with water, some alcohols, chemically interesting surfactants, or combinations thereof. Oddly, some of these (alcohols and some surfactants) occasionally do not turn the hydrocarbon based enamels and lacquers (especially some of the latter) into unuseable goo.

I think some of your confusion with Tamiya stems from their (rumored, here abouts) two lines of paint: one acrylic, and the other enamel. Folks in the "New World" only get the acrylic line, and tend to forget that elsewhere, Tamiya enamels are available. So when we savages and barbarians on this side of the pond speak of Tamiya, we generally mean the acrylics.

Unless, of course, I have completely misunderstood…

Thanks!

darson wrote:

Call me pedantic…

<Intoned with great and deep solemnity> Let it be known henceforth, to all and sundry, that the forum member previously known as "darson," and occasionally as Darren, shall from this moment forward, forever be called "pedantic," with all the honors, rights, and priviledges thereunto appurtaining. So let it be engraved in the stones of time, written in firey letters across the firmament. So let it be done! So say we all: Fiat. fiat. fiat! <Deep and solumn organ processional>

(Sorry, must be the aftereffects of the medications I've been on for the last week!) 

darson wrote:

Call me pedantic but I always use a couple of drops of the manufactures recommended thinner for thinning the paint  in my a/b.  However I use hardware store Mineral Spirits for the clean up afterwards. Cheers

You're certainly free to pay $54 USD a gallon for testor's Airbrush Thinner by tthe pint or a whopping $160.92 USD a gallon by the 1.75 oz. bottle, but I'll continue to get great results with my dollar a gallon hardware store brand thinner.

ajlafleche wrote:

You're certainly free to pay $54 USD a gallon for testor's Airbrush Thinner by tthe pint or a whopping $160.92 USD a gallon by the 1.75 oz. bottle, but I'll continue to get great results with my dollar a gallon hardware store brand thinner.

Ouch!  That hurts!!!

Triarius wrote:

NYET! NINE! NON! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

So I'm hearing you expressing a sentiment of no.....

ROTFLMBO

I'm seeing that response like in slow motion in a movie when something awful but slightly comedic is about to happen.

jwb wrote:

I'm seeing that response like in slow motion in a movie when something awful but slightly comedic is about to happen.

Glad you found it amusing! Actually, it is kind of funny to grab the wrong solvent, dump it into the mixing cup, start stiring, and this slimy goo creeps up the stirring stick, sort of like a glabrous slug. If you're a "Calvin and Hobbes" fan, you can just picture what happens next… 

Triarius wrote:

.... and this slimy goo creeps up the stirring stick, sort of like a glabrous slug. If you're a "Calvin and Hobbes" fan, you can just picture what happens next…

Spaceman Spiff grabs his laser blaster, retreating up the ladder into his spaceship, blasting away at the ever approaching slug!

jwb wrote:

Triarius wrote: .... and this slimy goo creeps up the stirring stick, sort of like a glabrous slug. If you're a "Calvin and Hobbes" fan, you can just picture what happens next…  Spaceman Spiff grabs his laser blaster, retreating up the ladder into his spaceship, blasting away at the ever approaching slug!

But the slug is immune to blaster fire! Oh no! Is this the end for the intrepid Spaceman Spiff?

But look! Streaking across the sky in a bolt of blazing crimson—it's Stupendous Man to the rescue!!!