Tamiya acrylic brushing tips

Tamiya paints are well known for their brush painting issues. The only way I've successfully brush painted with Tamiya is to thin it about 60% paint to 40 % Tamiya thinner (which has an acrylic retarder to slow down the drying. You can use Isopropyl Alcohol and add retarder to it. You can get retarder at places like Opus or Michaels.

The next thing is to paint quickly and realize that you will have to do two coats (thinning reduces "hide") and let the paint cure fully (about 24 hours, longer in moist or humid conditions. Note that there is a difference between dried and cured. Acrylics dry from the surface down, so you can have what feels like dry paint, only it isn't.

Tamiya paints are designed more for airbrushes. If you don't have an airbrush, I suggest PollyScale paints (AKA Floquil). But what I really suggest is getting an airbrush!

Bill's suggestions are good. I've also had success dipping the brush in isopropyl alcohol before loading it with paint. This works very well for small parts.

Thanks guys. :)

I have an AB, a Badger 155 Anthem, but I don't have a compressor yet. I decided to get the TC-20T instead of a loud 3 gal one from Canadian Tire so I can use it when the kids are in bed, when I do most of my work anyways. However the car broke down so there went my compressor money.

I'm working on the cockpit of a 1/32 F15 and even those relatively small pieces are hard to get a nice coat on. I went to Micheals tonight but the only retartder I saw was a tube and I would have thought I'd want something more fluid? Any good products to recomend?

When I bought this F15 (Tamiya Bunker Buster) I bought all the paints on the colour list, so I'm stuck with them. My wife would be pissed if I spent money on more paints of the same colours at this point. But for my future reference, what is a really good paint for brushing?

Thanks for the help guys.

Oh and Bill I had a buddy in Kelowna a few weekends ago and he said it was insane hot. High 30s? Yuck.

Would you believe Future floor finish? No, I'm not kidding! I was researching this problem and came across a guy who uses Future to mix with acrylic paints. Claims it flows smoother and hardens better. Couldn't hurt to try, worse you can do is end up using it on the floor. I use Future for gloss coating before and after decals. It has self levelling characteristics and might salvage your model. It brush paints pretty good.

I hope you get a compressor soon. Those darn cars!

Yeah, that was the official temperature. The thermometer on my deck (which is shaded) claimed 42, (107 Fahrenheit, for our non-metric readers), which I believed! I live in a house without A/C, and it was a tad difficult to sleep. Since then we've had alternating thunderstorms and heat, makes it quite humid!

Like others have mentioned, retarders are the way to go for Tamiya.  For brush painting, I personally have had very good succes using Liquitex Slow-dry.  I start by putting a few drops of color into the pallet cup and then mix in just a drop of Slow Dry.  I can now brush paint as normal, just like using enamels- without pre-mature drying.  This also works well to retard the paint good enough for long periods while dry-brushing and other techniques.  You can find Liquitex Slow-Dry at you local art stores, specifically Bates, Micheals, Hobby Lobby, etc.  Also check web stores as well.

plasticmod992 wrote:

Like others have mentioned, retarders are the way to go for Tamiya.  For brush painting, I personally have had very good succes using Liquitex Slow-dry.  I start by putting a few drops of color into the pallet cup and then mix in just a drop of Slow Dry.  I can now brush paint as normal, just like using enamels- without pre-mature drying.  This also works well to retard the paint good enough for long periods while dry-brushing and other techniques.  You can find Liquitex Slow-Dry at you local art stores, specifically Bates, Micheals, Hobby Lobby, etc.  Also check web stores as well.

That's the stuff I was talking about! If Michaels doesn't have it, somebody will!

I'll go and look again in Micheals tomorrow. The baby was being very fussy so my wife rushed me and I didn't look around that much.

If I don't like that then I'll give the future a try. I'm just wondering what it will do to my flat colours.

Calgarys being getting insane lightning storms lately, but the temps are seldom above 30.

Like I said I'm going slow and haven't ruined anything yet, but I think my paint so far looks kinda blotchy and thick. If I really hate it I'll just soak the parts in windex and go back to the beggining without passing go.

Thanks for the advice all!!

If it's any help, my first two models after a 20 year hiatus were brush painted using Tamiya paints. I thought they looked pretty good, until I logged on to here and saw what I was up against! Actually the paint job turned out alright, it was the canopy and decaling that was (and still IS) my undoing. Slow and steady, don't try to rush it. If the paints getting tacky half way through, then stop half way.

In my opinion Tamiya are excellent paints (I had better, I have 70 bottles!!). I have a couple of bottles from 20 years ago that are still in excellent condition, and are perfectly useable.

The Future will gloss up your paint, but the best way to apply decals is to paint, gloss coat, decal, gloss coat, flat coat (if required) and then weather, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

I picked up some Tamiya thinner today so we'll see how it goes.