I always prime with Tamiya grey primer to make sure I have no flaws before paint. I’m really impressed with this paint and will start buying it to replace my lifecolor and Tamiya paints. I wish my LHS carried it but Dave at last cavalry models in Michigan carries the entire line. He’s a great guy and have talked with him a lot at shows around here don’t have to worry about placing a order with him.
So I’m confused. Are these ‘acrylic’ or enamel? I’m not familiar with the term acrylic laquer. As I often travel international, I’m limited on what I can drag along for projects. I can truly vouch for how Vallejo and MM definitely need primer for their acrylics.
Where in Michigan? Any links for contact?
they are acrylic suspended in laquer. Here is where I get mine from.
Here is an AK video link that you might find helpful. More videos follow as each finishes. Or they should dependiing. They have a series of videos. Look for them.
Hamster, Rambo,thanks for the info
I suggest looking at Scale Hobbyist, way cheaper there.
Please do…
Well Gregster-- I would recommend using what Plasticjunkie found, Scale Hobbyist. They seem to stock them well too and they are $1 less per bottle than where I bought from. If in a pinch–the place I found is Michigan Toy Soldier. If you are ever in their area Greg–you might want to stop in there. It looks like a cool store.
Boy I am tired today. My squirrel cage really has me spent. [;)]
Thanks for the additional info.
You might want to hook that squirrel cage up to a generator, get some use from all that expended energy…
Well, if I ever find myself driving to Toronto again, the store isn’t too far off route…
Let me guess: www.michtoy.com. $3.99 a bottle. Why keep it a secret?
I’ve ordered from them a few times myself.
Scalehobbyist has them for $2.99 a bottle. I think it depends where you buy them. Most online hobby stores carry them nowadays. You just got to compare prices and check for sales.
I found this stuff was falsely marketed. I picked some up after seeing a guy on youtube thin it with everything but the kitchen sink. I tried my usual thinners and it all just turned to gunk. The only thing I had handy it could really be thinned with was rubbing alcohol. I don’t know if the recipe changed or something but what the guys promoing had and what came in my bottles was clearly behaving differently.
I e-mailed AK to ask about it and didn’t get a reply. Really put me off from buying from them in the future. If I can’t trust review videos to be accurate I won’t buy blind from them.
I would ask three questions of you:
1, what are your usual thinners?
2, are any of your thinners the same as you saw in the YouTube video?
3, was the video put out by AK directly?
If the answer to 2 and/or 3 is no, you really have no room to complain about false marketing. You were conducting experiments on your own, and learned what did and did not work with that particular paint line.
Vallejo airbrush thinner is my standard but I also use Tamiya. When they first came out AK advertised them on their compaitability with most paint ranges which is what got people interested.
The video shows it thinning with Vallejo airbrush thinner at 28 minutes. Works perfectly in that but mine turned to snot. The official compaitability video shows them using acryllic thinner at the 5:30 mark. Under that same video a commentator asked if it could use X-20A thinner with it and gets told you can. The Flory video has him mixing X-20A at the 25 minute mark where it mixes like a dream. I have official statements and a non-official video both saying it’s possible and then my results clash with that. But what annoyed me most is customer service just ignoring a polite email asking what they could be thinned with since I had found it didn’t work when I tried something they recommended.
If other people do it and they are just regular Joes, then it is certainly possible to mix it as they are without issue. Must be you that is doing it wrong! AK didn’t solicit the videos that show it working fine, That’s just independant modelers and it is working great for them. I think that you somehow did something wrong, not AK. Really never heard a bad thing about this stuff, just gor some last week.
I don’t know how you mix paint wrong. Shake pot, shake thinner, put both in plastic shot glass and stir with whatever stick you’re using. I just tried it again with X-20A and it split just like before. Two different colours have done that to me now.
I’ve seen a few other forums discussing having problems with it and AK ignoring customer emails. That’s where the rumours of a change of recipe comes from because nothing else makes sense.
Then I guess that you should use Tamiya products and just walk away from the AK paints since it is not working for you. It really is not worth it. I’m sure that the paint has been changed but I doubt AK will explain or acknowledge it. Maybe it is made by a different manufacturer or was changed to accomodate chemical laws here or in europe. I would assume that using AK thinner is the best alternative but it looks from your posts that that is not what you want to do. There is no universal paint thinnable by all solvents, or a thinner that thins all paints well. That’s just not reality here.
If you used X-20A, there is your problem. You can’t use acrylic thinners on this paint, you must cut it with a lacquer thinner. I use Tamiyas lacquer thinner and it works fine. Btw-- in my initial testing and just for grins, I tried mixing a batch using Tamiya acrylic thinner (X-20A) and it did not cut the paint. This paint is a lacquer based acrylic and it must be cut with lacquer.
Try using lacquer and report back.
I used Tamiya X-20A to thin AK Real Color Olivgelb last year on my Leopard 1A4 build with no mixing problems. I did notice that the finish was on the “gritty” side. But it mixed with the thinner just fine, and sprayed thru my Badger airbrush with no problems. And it cleaned up just fine as well.
But as MM66 said above, there are no Universal paint thinners. Especially with acrylics due to all the varying formulas of that paint type by the different paint brands. What works with one brand makes a gloppy mess with another. In this respect enamels have an advantage. Every enamel brand that I’ve used in the past 35 years that I’ve been airbrushing will thin with good old fashioned enamel paint thinner.
I maintain that for best results lacquer should be used. Try what you will but expect mixed results.
I understand what you chaps are saying and I don’t disagree with any of it. I mostly posted because I wanted to warn others that some of the info out there isn’t holding up in my testing. I know lacquer is recommended but a lot of the marketing was about it’s ability to slot into your standard paint range. I’ve seen it recommended as one of those paint lines you can pick up no matter what you’re using to supplement what you already had. I’d rather mention it in a post than have others waste their money on something not suitable to them like I did.
I don’t know if it’s a regional thing, that’s possible. I’m in the UK so if any one else is maybe worth a test to see if it is a recipe swap in different regions.