The Little World

France, Stein, and the Temple Of Thinners

A scientific exploration of how to ruin paint. All you ever wanted to know about nothing you cared about.

We have all been to a hobby shop or a club where advice was being given out. We’ve been told we need Product A to spray Product B from an airbrush onto Product C. In many cases all these items are on sale and sometimes we can wonder whether we are also being sold. In an effort to make own mistakes, M. France and I have conducted a morning of experiments to discover which thinners successfully work with which paints.

The experiments were sprayed on standardised targets; plastic tablets coated in Mr. Surfacer undercoat. These were done under dry and warm conditions from standardised air brushes. Strict records were kept. The thinners available were:

a. water

b. methylated spirit

c. extremely cheap vodka

d. Mr Hobby Levelling Thinner

The results:

a. Cheap craft paint from Amazon.

Water thinned it and sprayed well, also the meths. Vodka made a sludge in the mixing cup, as did Levelling Thinner.

b. Tamiya flat acrylic paint.

Water made a lumpy mess, as did the vodka. Meths thinned it well, as did Levelling Thinner.

c. Mr. Color lacquer paint.

Meths and vodka made a slimy mess in the mixing cup. Levelling Thinner mixed and sprayed perfectly.

d. Vallejo dropper acrylic paint.

Water, vodka, and Levelling Thinner all sprayed well, but took a long time to dry – with clumping. Meths sprayed and dried perfectly.

e. SMS lacquer paint.

Water and vodka made a slimy sludge in the mixing cup. Meths and Levelling Thinner mixed and sprayed well.

In supplementary tests, Tamiya acrylic paint was a failure with windscreen wiper fluid while SMS metallic lacquer was fine with meths.

Note that in many instances the SMS paints can spray straight out of the bottle.

The findings may not be news to you, but they will allow some more choices for us when we cannot get access to our normal modelling solutions. It is not always possible to buy every substance we desire from our local hobby shops – good to have alternatives that have been tested.