The Little World

Now that everyone uses acrylics?

Yes. We may have lost Testors but there is still Humbrol. You may have cut your teeth on them, grown to hate them, but now are curious about them.

Find a test-bed model…something you can afford to ruin. Sand it, prime it, and grab a dear old a Humbrol pot. Also get some enamel thinner and some lacquer thinner. You won’t be mixing these two.

Test out whether the enamel thinner cuts the Humbrol effectively and allows it to flow well in the airbrush. Time the application and the drying right to fully-cured hard.

Then see if the lacquer thinner will cut the enamel as well. Many times it will, with no clumping or separation. If you detect incompatibility, just ditch the mix. Go through the sequence to final hardness, and see if you can reduce the time over the enamel thinner.

Then try the two surfaces with a fingernail. The thinners should not denature the paint layer.

Note that I have had real success with Model Master thinned with GSI Creos Rapid Thinner. No denaturing or clumping – and cleans out of the airbrush with gunwash beautifully. A little slower than lacquer in the drying cabinet but not by much.