I’ve just ordered a set of Mr. Color Acrylic paints for a B-24 i’m going to build. I’m new to the use of acrylics and have read various instructions in fine scale modeler magazine. The Mr. Color instructions for thinning and cleaning airbrushes seems to be all in Japanese, no English instructions. Can someone please advise me what they use to thin Mr. Color acrylics and also how to clean airbrushes and clean brushes? thanks so much
You will need lacquer thinner to thin these paints and to cleaning the airbrush.I think Testors sell lacquer thinner.
Gunze paints should be thinned with either Gunze’s own Mr. Thinner or (perhaps better) Mr. Levelling Thinner or Tamiya Lacquer thinner (yellow cap, now white as found in A-20 acrylic thinner). The term “acrylic” can be a little misleading. What is important to note is that the solvent in Gunze (and Tamiya) is both toxic and flammable (check the label) as opposed to mostly or entirely water/polymer like Vallejo Model Color. (This issue resulted in Tamiya paint being hard to find for a while because its labeling didn’t include the warnings required by California law.) I’m not trying to convince you to not use Gunze - it has its fans and I’ve used it successfully as well. But it will work better (as will Tamiya) if used with lacquer thinners. There are modellers that disagree, but this point is pushed hard by the "Spanish School "armor gurus like Adam Wilder and Mig Jimenez and in my view they’re absolutely right. Someone very good with an airbrush can take liberties which I think accounts for the continued popularity of Tamiya A-20 acrylic thinner. When you switch to lacquer thinner however, (either Tamiya or Gunze - I’d be very careful about using hardware store varieties as they’re stronger and could attack plastic) you’ll get a very nice coat, have very little trouble with tip clogging and, as noted, be able to thin the paint to a very low % of the mix which can be very valuable for complex weathering.
Eric
Stick with Gunze’s own Mr. color thinner, but clean up with cheaper generic lacquer thinner. We are talking about the lacquer Gunze right, not the Aqueous line? Mr. color lacquers love to be thinned alot, around 1 part paint to 1.5 parts thinner, otherwise they dry in the air before they hit the model’s surface, causing rough paint and spider webs. But once you get the thinning ratio down, you’ll never touch another brand of paint again, at least not to airbrush with.