Tag: thinners
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It Might Do What It Says On The Tin

But what if you can’t read the blasted tin? The hobby item packaged with a language you cannot understand is no better than the kit with no instructions. You may have a faint inkling about the dilution, application, drying time, or characteristics of a paint or varnish, but that might not be enough. The maker…
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Carrie Nation’s Guide To Airbrushing

Stay away from Mick, John, and Dick. They have dangerous ideas. A recent discovery of a cheap Canadian whiskey on our local market led to speculation about paint thinners and prices. We looked out bottles of Tamiya X-20 and X-20A at the club, and noted the recent price rises. It’s now $ 15 – $…
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Vought Crusader F-8 – Part Three – Between Thinners

I was torn between thinners for this Crusader. I had enough Light Gull Grey to do the upper side easily – and a new bottle of semi-gloss white for the under side. But one was a water-based acrylic and the other lacquer based. Would it matter? Was there going to be a fizzing explosion along…
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Grey – Gray – Grau

This is not a black and white post… I was gifted a number of paint bottles – a LARGE number – and had to decide what to do with them. The first step was to ascertain whether they could be used with my normal airbrush and thinners – and apparently they could, with good success.…
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Handley Page Heyford – Part Two – Paint-Be-Gone

I was a little nonplussed at discovering that the Heyford wings and tail were painted on their sprue trees. The job was well, done, but it wasn’t what I would have used myself. What to do? Risk leaving the paint on and then having a top coat of lacquer start to react and dissolve into…
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The Smell Of Victory

You’ll all remember the line from Apocalypse Now about napalm attacks. It harks back to my earliest modelling days when the smell of turpentine filled the house every time I painted. Those were enamel days – Pactra, Testors, and Humbrol. There was a fair range of quasi-lacquers as well from Revell that had a distinctive…
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Yak 3 – Part Four _ Speed Is As Speed Does

When you are not bending up connecting rods from brass PE sheets for a 1/72 kit, it seems to go a lot faster in the construction. Not as liable to win Best-of-Show at the Anorak Expo, but you have to be realistic. And Hobby Boss are the most realistic moulders I know. The Yak 3…
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Having A Thin Time Of It

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…
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Colour Choice In A Paint-Starved World

The racks in my favoured place of worship are looking bare. Time to put some more heretics to the question… Calm, down Torquemada – we’re talking about the paint racks at the local hobby shop. The Tamiya and Gunze sections are getting sparse as shipments are delayed around the world. Other sections are full –…
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Proper ‘Ard

Say that in a Matt Ball accent. The question of drying times has arisen in the past and I’ve made decisions that have bit me in the Arsenal F.C. Progressing from Tamiya acrylics to Mr. Color lacquers and modelling in an outside workshop/shed for much of the year has meant that there were a whole…
