hey guys, i gotta question. i have several bottles of MM enamels lying around just aging. i hate to waste the stuff. ill get in the experimentation mode so i’ll try varying thinning ratio’s with mineral spirits and testors airbrush thinner for testors enamels. as anybody knows from reading some of my post, im a bonefied cammo junkie. i love birds with cammo. i like to free hand my cammo patterns so the fine line is essential to my skills. i can mix up a batch of tamiya acrylic at 60%thinner 40% paint and just walk the dog with the fine line. but with the enamels, i cant get a consistant fine line at all. i can get a tight, soft, feathered demarcation line, but it takes 3 times as much time, patience, and tweaking on the trigger to get there as it does with the acrylics. like i say, ive tried any and all mixing ratio’s, psi from 8 to 25 psi, and nothing seems to help. now, i know this is popular stuff because who can resist the awesome assortment of colors!! please, any tricks or techniques would be appreciated. i have to mix all my colors from tamiya acrylics (which are very limited in color ranges) which is not bad in itself, but sometimes its just nice to buy the exact color straight out of the bottle with a little thinning. help!! thanks, later.
I’m surprised, I had no luck with acrylics and found enamels a breeze as long as the brush is clean.
I use Model Master enamels almost exclusively. Iv’e tried acrylics, but they don’t work well for me. They spray OK, except for tip dry, but I have had too many problems with paint lifting when masked. For broad coverage with MM, I thin about 3 paint to 1 thinner and spray at 20-25 psi. For camo patterns I thin the paint more, about 2:1, and lower the pressure to 10-15 psi. I use the MM thinner even though it’s kinda expensive as it seems to work better than other thinners Iv’e tried. For clean up, I use only lacquer thinner.
plum, i clean my brush religiously so i dont think its that. the hp-cs was brand new when i sprayed the enamel through it.
rjk, what type of airbrush do you use?
I spray both enamels and acrylics with no problems at all, and I use the same simple rules with both. I just thin to the consistency of “milk” (skim, whole, 2%… I don’t know. Milk!) with the manufacturer’s thinner.
Nooooo problems!
[#ditto] You took the words right out of my mouth. I also thin to the consistency of milk with manufacturer’s thinner, and I get nice thin lines.
Chris, I have a Paasche H and an Iwata HP-CR.
and you guys can do close in spraying with the milk deal? ive heard that rule of thumb before and it just comes out in little spatters in all 3 of my airbrushes at that consistancy at 10 to 12 psi.
oh well, i guess its just the lack of practice with the enamels showing through. ill go back and practice with it some more. thanks guys, later.
I haven’t had that much luck using mineral spirits for thinning MM paints (which I use almost exclusive - got too much invested in them to switch). The mixture doesn’t clabber or anything like that but just doesn’t seem to go on right and dries entirely too quickly (even in the bottle).
For years I’ve been using Dupont 3812S Enamel reducer for my enamels and have had great luck with it. Granted it’s more expensive than mineral spirits (Last gallon cost me $12.95 which is a whole lot cheaper than a gallon of MM thinner) but I can get in the local auto supply store and a gallon will last me about a year.
For general airbrushing I thin 50/50 and apply with 16/20 psi air pressure. For fine lines and weathering (exhaust stains etc), I thin up to 30/60 (paint to thinner) and vary the air pressure 10/16 psi.
Hope this helps a little
hey quince, im glad you said that. i was in the auto supply the other day buying some oil and slipped over to the paint section and saw some of the dupont products. i also saw some virgin laquer thinner and virgin mineral spirits. anybody gotta clue as to what that is? anyway, i might go and buy a quart of the dupont stuff and try it if i dont get the results im looking for with MM thinner. thanks, later.
and you guys can do close in spraying with the milk deal? ive heard that rule of thumb before and it just comes out in little spatters in all 3 of my airbrushes at that consistancy at 10 to 12 psi…
There is one of your problems right there Saltydog. I use a Paasche VL and go by the milk rule also. I use MM and Boyds enamels exclusievly. You have to use around 20 to 25 PSI inorder for it to not sputter and splatter. Any lower and you will need to thin down the mix more. I have seenalot of good work done with the acrylics but I don’t like the way they ghost through any mold lines in the palstic. The enamels do take longer to dry but I feel its worth the results to wait…not to mention the dry time gives you time to work on another part of the model [:D]
I just recently painted the cammo on a 72nd scale spitfire with MM enamels. What I found that I needed was to mix the paint pretty thin, a hair thinner than I thought I needed to, like skim milk, but maybe a bit thinner. Then I started spraying test lines on my huge drawing pad that I use for a work area. If it comes out too spattery, I add thinner (I use laquer thinner from wally world to thin and clean with) one drop at a time until I get a good tight line with no spatters. If it comes out too wet, I add paint a drop at a time as well. I found that I had to adjust bit by bit as I worked, it was only a single drop of one or the other to get me just right again. I stirred the paint in the color cup with a tooth pick and had no problems at all. While I was painting, if the color started not covering, I’d add paint, if it started getting spattery, I’d add thinner. Was that any help at all?
ive tried every ratio at differ psi increments to test the mixture. the results are the same. i’m gonna have time tonight to practice some more so ill post a bit later. 20 psi seems a bit much for that mixture but i use and iwata hp-c or hp-cs. theres a difference in sweet spots with every airbrush.
that lets me know that im not alone in my tweaking josh!! thats my point though, i can throw in a batch of properly thinned tamiya acrylic and within seconds i have the line im looking for. i’ve tried everything that i know to try to get it with the enamels. maybe im being too picky. if it ain’t painted right, i just cant be satisfied with my build. im not gonna let this beat me, now the above posters give there satisfactory reports on using enamels, darn the torpedo’s, full speed ahead!! later.
alright fellows, i just got back from the workbench and i ran some more tests with the testors airbrush thinner for enamels and mm enamel dark tan. i finally got what i was looking for on the second try with the iwata hp-c. i mixed 1:1 first and could get a consistant fine line at just under 10psi. i mixed in 8 drops of paint and 12 drops of thinner and couldn’t achieve a consistant spray pattern until i cranked the pressure down to around 6 psi. i know yall are probably thinking WHO THE HECK SPRAYS AT THAT PSI?!! for one thing, my guage may not be telling the truth, but the regulator puts out steady air where ever the needle on my guage is reading. the eclipse hp-cs is lagging behind a little as i couldn’t achieve the consistant fine line. oh, i could get the same fine line, but it was much easier with the hp-c. now mind you i bought the .4mm needle/nozzle conversion kit for my hp-c and my eclipse has the .35mm n/n combo. thats why i would be interested in seeing what a revolution would do. josh, you have one, how do you like it? thanks once again guys, yours posts encouraged me to keep trudging away at it. i finally getting a little happier about mm enamels for the 1st time since ive been in this hobby. later.
Hey no problem…
One little trick for mixing enamels is a 50/30 ratio. For example if you use syphon jars like i do and you were going to mix up alot of paint for a large body you would fill the bottle half way which would be 50%. Then eyeing the jar fill up another 30%of it with thinner. drop in 2 bb’s and shake well. comes out pretty good every time. I know your using color cups but it works just the same.[:D]
I like my Revolution very well. I did the cammo on my spit, and I think it looks great, it’s a soft line, but still very distinct with nice seperation between the colors. It took me a bit of experimentation to get it right and a teeney bit of touching up, but it’s my first cammo job I’m very pleased. I’ll borrow a camera (not a digital sadly) and take some pics to send you. I might also add that the spit is 72nd scale and very small.
excellent, i’ll be waiting on the edge of my seat josh!![:D]
Okay, I got pics taken, but I don’t know how good they’ll be. The camera doesn’t have a lens for close up stuff, but I think it’ll be okay. I got one of the spit next to my airbrush, so you have a better idea of the scale. I also took some pics of my A7-e cockpit in progress.
I went to the airshow yesterday and got several good pics there. All that remains is to have all these developed and put onto cd (and heal from the sunburn) . The P-47 that was there was the same one I took pics of in Galveston last month, so I got several more pics of it with the cowl on this time. I was able to crawl underneath it and get wheel well and gear mechanisim and flap hinge pics as well. The coolest thing was that I got to talk to the pilot, and he did me the favor of taking my camera and taking 5 or 10 excellent closeup cockpit photos!! After I have these developed, I’ll email you the spit ones. If you want, I got good detail shots of a P-51 you can have also.
Also, if anyone needs any P-47 pics, I have great ones I’d be happy to mail some
.
sounds great josh! im always game for P-51 pit photo’s. i wonder how close to original it was? later.
It looked pretty good, but it’s hard to say for sure on something like that. Once I have the pics, I’ll hunt down the real aircraft and double check as best I can. It was a beautiful bird for sure though. The Thunderbirds were awesome as always!