While I have been shooting Tamiya acrylics for years, I had never tried metallics before. I had always hand painted those parts before.
I tried spraying Tamiya gunmetal gray, and it was a disaster! I thinned like normal, Tamiya thinner 3 parts paint to 2 parts thinner, shot at 18 psi. It wouldn’t spray unless I had my airbrush wide open. I thinned further, 1:1, when it did spray, lots of splatter. I even bumped up the psi, no luck!
Anyone with experience shooting Tamiya Metallics please sound off!
Tamiya metallics can be difficult to airbrush. The metallic particles settle out very quickly and can clog your airbrush in no time at all. It can be worse with a fine nozzle gravity feed brush.
You need to thin it some more, say 60% thinner (or more), and make sure that it’s well stirred. Work quickly, so it has less time to settle in your airbrush, and apply in thin layers and build it up.
If you’re spraying and nothing’s coming out and then you get a splatter/rush when you release the trigger, that’s the needle going back to the closed position and forcing backed up pigment particles through the nozzle. Clear your airbrush and add more thinner to the mix until it flows freely. As mentioned above, you will need to make several passes to build up the colour depth.
I tend to thin with methylated spirits, which is essentially ethyl alcohol. This seems to stretch it a bit further while maintaining adhesion, but it does knock the gloss off the paint (not usually a problem as I mostly use flat paints). When a glossy finish is required, I’ll use Tamiya thinner, but it doesn’t seem to stretch as far before it starts to run and separate.
Badger 200NH with a medium tip and needle. I don’t even own a fine tip right now as all I shoot are acrylics, and I am rarely doing any lines that fine.
That’s why I was baffled by the result. I would have thought that combo would have the paint flowing nicely! I will take the advice so far, try a thinner batch, and shoot it, probably at lower PSI than my normal.