how many tanks can be spray painted with one of the small container of Tamiya paints? and do you cut it 50% with thinner?
I’d say one maybe two. I don’t usually thin it that much. More of an 80-20 ratio. I’ve heard of people spraying straight out of the bottle with no thinner. Paint drys really fast though.
I am not sure which size of Tamiya paint bottle your’re talking. Tamiya acrylic paints come in two sizes, 23 ml or 10 ml. Now I assume your are talking about 10 ml bottle.
IMHO, it all depends on:
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The size of the tank. The larger the tank(say a M-26 Pershing) certainly needs more paint than a small light tank( say a M-3 Stuart).
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The complexity of the color patten. If you want to do some shading or higlight, you may need extra paint to mix with darker or light colors.
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The base color of the plastic mold. If you are building a Tamiya M-4 Sherman, you will perhaps need less paint since the mold already molded in olive drab. However if you are building a DML M-4 Sherman, you’ll need more paint because the mold is molded in grey; you will need paint to cover the base color.
Therefore, IMHO, for a 10 ml paint, I would say it can paint two 1/35 Tamiya M-4 Shermans if everythings goes well. I usually make a 3:1 ration of paint to thinner in dilution. My estimation maybe a little bit conservation. You may, with a little bit of luck, have leftover for a Tamiya M-3 Stuart or a Jeep.
Ok, that sounds good. we shot for an M3 & 5 Stuart and 2 Shermans, at a 50/50 mix and did not get great coverage.
On the other hand we were shooting with some wind and using the can for power. I will be using an aircompressor from now on.
And they were the itty bitty bottles