Thinner for Acrylic for Airbrush

ManicMan

ManicMan

Lord
Well, as stated before some months back, I got pretty pissed off with Vallejo in that there Grey-Blue (70.943) comes in normal acrylic version and in airbrush version, but the Airbrush version (with the same code and everything, so it is 100% meant to be the same colour) is a HUGHLY different and much darker shade, so My idea of quick painting Space Wolves via airbrushing for the armour took a huge step back. the fact that really, an airbrush version of a paint is just the same thing but only 50% of the paint content and the rest is thinner, but it's the same price.. is a bit weird.. but anyway.. best I can hope is to really take some of the normal paint version and thin it for my airbrush.

I can see two good cheap options.. well, you can by special 'thinner' but... alot of the time that seams like a bit of a waste of money as you are buying something which you might already have but with a mark up. anyway, the two options appear to be
1) Water at a ratio of 1:1
2) Rubbing Alcohol (isopropyl?)

well.. while not 100% free unless you collect rain water, water is probably the cheapest option. however, I do have a big bottle of Isopropyl (9something% so pretty pure). Now.. Isopropyl is what I used to clean my airbrush.. so.. that will very much thin the paint out.. I'm kinda not sure what is 'best'.

So I decided I had two options: 1) suck it and see 2) ask others.
I decided to try option 2 first cause I'm lazy at times.
 
ManicMan said:
the fact that really, an airbrush version of a paint is just the same thing but only 50% of the paint content and the rest is thinner, but it's the same price.. is a bit weird..
Click to expand...
I know I think that whenever I buy airbrush paints, but then again I can sometimes be lazy and I guess I'm paying for my idleness :)

I don't see why water and alcohol won't work to thin things, my guess would be ⅔ water ⅓ alcohol as a starting point. If you're in a hard-water area I'd probably buy a 5L bottle of distilled water rather than using tap just to reduce the chances of any buildup over time. Will be interested to hear your results.
 
I got a bunch of bottles of bottled water (not by buying it though.. some got when there was a few days without water, and some were left overs from an event I help with) so even if it was a hard water area, not got a shortage of water ^_^
I'm probably gonna wait till the weekend to try some things because I got some priming I want to do first
 
Well. not the weekend but Experiment start:
Please note, the following is a non-professional experiment. It involves some dangerous chemicals and may lead to death if people you live with are very fussy about paint stains in a bathroom. So probably don't do this under the age of 14, even though you would get more dangerous stuff in in an old children's science kit (though they appear much .. less so these days).

Experiment 1: I measured out (with some dental syringes) 1ml of acrylic paint mixed with 1ml of tap water. Gave it a good (quick) mix and it appeared a smooth mix, so I tried this. I'm not sure if I didn't mix it right or putting the paint first was a mistake but it resulted mostly in a blocked nozzle with only air really flowing. Failed

Experiment 2: I added 1ml of 99.9% Iso alcohol to the mix, making it 1/3 Water, 1/3 Arcylic an 1/3 Iso. This resulted in it being pretty weak and dripping even when it wasn't supplying air. I did kinda get very bad splatter from trying to use it. Failed

Experiment 3: I tried a mixture of 1ml Iso Alcohol with 1ml of Acrylic paint, also got a bit annoyed with how much of a pain it was to suck up the paint. I think it ended up more 1.5ml of iso and paint though. Anyway, I tried this and got a weird marble like spatter effect, even after giving it some time to spray through and settle. Failed

Experiment 4: I added 0.5ml of water to this mixture as it appeared to be going in the right direction. This appeared flow really well and gave a nice even coat. Success?

Now, I kinda used a mixture of toilet paper and 25mm plastic (non-slotta) bases as a test bed to see how it went. I will take some photos but I want to give them a bit of time to dry cause nothing worse then ruling it a success to find out soo much is lost when it dries, making it pointless, or the paint goes flaky or something. but right now, it's appearing that a mixture of ... erm.. 37.5% Iso, 37.5% Acrylic paint and 25% Water. which is kinda opposite to Eric's idea which would have put more water then Iso.. might also work but this appears to work so.. yay? Might try that experiment sometime but right now, if it works, it works ^_^
 
That's interesting, maybe too much water keeps the paint open too long then and you need the faster evaporation from the alcohol? What acrylic paint are you using?
 
DSCF2785.JPGOkay, as expected, nothing much changed when they dried which is fine. no Number 1 cause of the blocked nozzle, Number 2 was with the nozzle a bit dripply and when it stopped, it didn't really improve much. Number 3 is the 50-50 Alcohol-paint mix, and number 4, the mix with some water.

The Acrylic paint was Vallejo model thingy, so standard Vallejo acrylic. Number 3 might be better with move coverage but I would have to spend more time to get it more even, when number 4 does it find (I think there is a problem with the base on number 4 as there is that odd spot on the bottom edge which I noticed when paint started to spray.. doesn't make much difference on the whole though.
 
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