The Little World

Since returning to scale model kit building and taking on the whole airbrush thing, I’ve been steadily making discoveries. Many of them have been through the mechanism of mistake and regret, but I’m happy to say not all. Yesterday I got to pet the learning curve without it biting me in the ass.

The question arose in my mind of the thinners that are used in the Little Workshop. I’ve got five basic bottles from which to draw.

a. Mineral turps – for enamel work and washes. Not a lot of call for this now as I prefer the quicker drying times of the various acrylics and lacquers. I buy the cheap brand from Bunnings and it has always answered my purposes perfectly well.

b. Methylated spirits – again the cheap Bunnings brand. This thins some acrylics nicely – I have long given up specialised Japanese bottles of what is basically IPA. It is also cheap enough to be an effective gun wash for Tamiya and Mr. Hobby acrylics.

c. Mr Color Regular Thinner. This has been used for matt and satin-finish paints from Gunze and Tamiya and seems to answer perfectly well whether the bottle is a lacquer or an alcohol acrylic. Fine in colder weather.

d. Mr Color Levelling Thinner. This gives a smooth finish in hotter weather and again seems to work with both companies’ products. I avoid Vallejo products and the only Spanish paints used are AK Real Colours – and these work well with the Gunze thinners.

For general gunwash up until now I’ve been using inexpensive lacquer thinner from Supercheap Auto. It seems a little too powerful to use as a paint thinner – softening styrene as you try to spray it.

But there have been two more developments of note; the Gunze company has introduced a Rapid Thinner to their range, and Supercheap Auto are also selling a premium lacquer thinner. The first you do not see in the shops here, though it has a good recommendation from people like Phil Flory. As far as the Supercheap thinner, I had run dry this last week and decided to spend and extra $ 10 for the big tin of the premium grade just to see what it was like.

Well, it washes out the brush a treat – that was to be expected. But I also discovered that it acts as a rapid thinner for scale model paints as well.

I was skeptical, so I fished out a couple of the old Airfix clear styrene display stands to act as spray dummies. If any thinner was going to craze or melt plastic, it would surely do it to clear parts.

Well, blue and white went through the gun perfectly and the surface is as good as any I’ve done. So I committed to spraying the two upper colours of some Soviet aircraft.

I couldn’t be happier with the result. No visible melting or crazing, and the coats have dried in about half the time needed for regular thinner. It will even tame a Tamiya flat brown and render it extremely flat. I’m wondering whether it is at all related to the Gunze Rapid Dry Thinner.

In the end I think I’ll end up with just the three lacquer thinners and the turps – no bad thing as simplicity is always to be desired. And economy is even better.