I have quite a few old 1980-90’s Tamiya Acrylic. It has never been opened. A friend said Tamiya paint at that time was bad and crazed months after application. I hate to throw it away. Can anyone advise if it is worth using and if so do I have to use the Tamiya thinner?
I’ve got a couple of bottle of Tamiya acrylics that must be from 1985-6 that is just fine. I’ve never experienced any problems with them. They’re the “large” bottles, there sure is a lot of paint in them! One of them is Gunmetal and I used it today in fact!
I myself have at least 15 jars of the old Tamiya paint bottle when they came in the larger bottles. I have never had a problem with any of them. I sounds like whoever gave you than info may have try to put the Tamiya paint over a surface that was contaminated or not compatable with acrylic paints. I would use them. If the have thickened up a little you have several choices to thin them. You can use alcohol it speeds up the drying time. Some have use butane for the same reason. Testors makes and thinner for acrylics. You can even just use water in a pinch but I prefer either alcohol or testors thinner. I have had good results with both. Hope this helps you. Soulcrusher
I have found that Tamiya thinner works very well.
I’ve been using Tamiya acrylics for years with great results, and only once have I had problems with the paint crazing.
It crazed on a Tamiya 1/12 motorcycle model - I painted the model with red, white and royal blue, applied the decals, then oversprayed the lot with Tamiya clear.
The color coats must not have been completely dry when I sprayed on the Tamiya clear, and when they dried, the hard shell of the clearcoat didn’t allow the color coats to shrink properly and they cracked right down to the plastic.
My advice to you is…use the Tamiya paint. It’s not bad, really. But I’d be careful spraying clearcoats over Tamiya gloss paints.
Good luck!
I also have quite a few bottles, some from the early-mid 80’s which are as good now as the day they were first opened. (and some which are yet to be opened)
In fact, it’s been said that the “old” formula is arguably better than the new in terms of smoothness of coverage when brush painting. (It’s believed that the “new” formula was introduced in the early 90’s).
You can use denatured alcohol as an alternative to Tamiya thinners - it works very well and is a lot less expensive than the “genuine” thinner.
My oldest Tamiya paint dates from 1982. I had one from 1978 or so, but I used it up about two years ago.
Isopropyl alcohol, 90% or thereabouts, works very well as a thinner. I have had trouble with ethyl alcohol (denatured alcohol is mostly ethyl alcohol these days) and some coatings, especially glosses. My advice is to use it only in small amounts, as a cosolvent, to regulate dispersion and drying time. You can also use small amounts of distilled water for the same purpose. Denatured (ethyl) increases dispersion and speeds drying. Water will do the opposite.
Hi There
Old Tamiya paint seems to clog at the bottom of the jar and resents being seperated for brush painting. Even Tamiya thinners will not let the paint flow smoothly.
I use standard cellulose thinners (the type that is used to thin automotive paints for real cars 1:1 scale) and find that this lets me put old Tamiya paint through my Badger 200 and get a good smooth coat.
When Tamiya paints hit the UK, I used to build a lot of models for the Beatties model store in Holborn, London, England and was given a box of each colour in the range as it was then, and still have a few left that I use as the situation demands.
Hope this helps Gary