Airbrush Paint Thinner Ratio

Typically i d thin tamiya acrylics with the purpose made tamiya acrylic thinner x20 a to a ratio of around one part paint to one part thinner 1 1 and airbrush the paint at around 18 psi.

Airbrush paint thinner ratio.

For instance for a general basecoat i thin tamiya paints with laquer thinner at about 30 thinner and 70 paint ratio typically shot through the airbrush at around 20psi. Add 2 3 drops of paint to the airbrush cup. The airbrush thinner is to help thin out your airbrush acrylic paint while paint extenders made by paint manufacturers only make the paint more transparent and not thinner. Short answer number 1 there is no such thing as an exact thinning ratio for any paint.

These days i eyeball it and mix it in the airbrush cup largely because i m impatient and tamiya paints are amazingly forgiving. Lacquer thinner however is not a suitable thinner for water based paints. Airbrush thinner is for thinning paints while paint extenders that the paint companies make more often than not do not make the color thinner but do make it more transparent. On the other hand flow improver is medium used to improve flow of paint and it helps to avoid tip drying.

What to use for thinning water based airbrush paint. Reducing or thinning airbrush colors in many cases requires some experimentation to find out at what consistency the paint is best atomized in the airbrush you are using. To mix into your airbrush cup you should. As dave has mentioned humbrol enamels require humbrol s own thinner unless you know its make up and can find a cheaper source of it.

For different effects i e. Water based airbrush paint allows for a significant amount of versatility when it comes to the options you have for reducing your paints. For instance you can use anything from the store bought airbrush paint thinner down to just straight water. If this happens just add a little more paint to the mixture to obtain a workable consistency.

Adding a little more thinner reducer can quickly fix this situation. Thinning paint for airbrushing the question what is the exact thinning ratio when using xyz paint in an airbrush or some derivative thereof comes up frequently so i thought i d try and provide a comprehensive answer once and for all. Under thinning the paint will end up clogging the airbrush or spraying heavy coats. A basecoat of paint after preshading panel lines i will thin 50 50 in order to give the paint a more translucent effect allowing me to build the layers of paint up a little at a time shot at.

Not so long ago humbrol paints could be thinned with lacquer thinner too and i still have some silver paint from them of that type. If you start with paint the paint might get into the airbrush tube which could clog the brush or make it harder to clean. Over thinning the paint can result in running paint with poor coverage. Use an old cheap brush to mix the two.