If its the same as their surface primer in spray cans, I would say that lacquer thinner would be just fine. Personally, I use MEK to thin mine and clean the airbrush with afterward, but lacquer thinner should also work. A solvent I found that has known compatibility issues with Tamiya Surface Primer is Isopropyl Alcohol…turns the primer into cottage cheese.
I would avoid brushing anything laquer or acetone based (Tamiya Surface Primer has a lot of acetone in it) directly onto anything plastic. Brush painting puts the paint/primer on much thicker and wetter than an airbrush would, and can damage your parts. For primering small parts, I typically use a hot glue gun to stick the small parts to a blunted toothpick. I can usually find a section of the part, such as an attachment peg, that I wouldn’t want to get paint on anyway and just use that as the point where I glue it to the toothpick. Then I use the edges of cheap rolls of masking tape as kind of a dart board to poke the sharp end of the toothpick into to hold them, and just grab each toothpick off the roll, primer or paint, and then stick the toothpick back into the roll so the part can dry undisturbed.
Here’s an example. The individual exhaust petals from an F-35A project I’ve been working on.
1, yes it thins well with lacquer thinner. I use Kleen Strip that I buy at the hardware store… nothing fancy
2, I havent tried any other thinners, because I get desired results with what I use. I tend to stick with known constants, unless given a solid reason to try something else.
3, I have cleaned my airbrushes with lacquer thinner after using Tamiya LSP, again for its known quialities. No pressing need to try something else.
I suppose it would be ok to hand brush on small parts, but you’ll get a muich thicker application compared to airbrushing.
Nice - thanks. I couldnt get the pic to come up, but i get the idea and see it well enough here. looks smart - thank you. But, i have just a few small parts and no glue gun yet… There tiny - maybe a can brush stynlrez(SP?) ? I always get that spelling wrong!
I’ve never used Stynylrez so, I’m not sure. Probably couldn’t hurt to give it a try on one of the small parts. Since its not lacquer-based, it shouldn’t hurt the plastic. I personally try to avoid brush painting anything but the smallest items (such as buttons and knobs), but I’m also finding lately that airbrushing some MRP clearcoat over a larger area that I have brush painted seems to take away the overly-thick look of brushed-on paint. That’s one of the cool things about this hobby. There’s always going to be some new thing that you try as an experiment, and it ends up working out really well.
Just FWIW, I’ve brushed the Stynlrez, don’t try to cover it your part all in one coat. Float it on and leave it for a second coat if needed.If you start messing with it by brushing re brushing etc. you just screw it up. It’s really made to be sprayed but you can brush it for small things. Larger areas are kind of a Bust but using a wide brush you can kind of slosh it on, again in a couple of coats… And sloshing is a good word in this case, forget any fancy terminology as to how this goes lol…
I only use Stynlrez and Mr Primer Surfacer or decanted Mr Surfacer for primers, can’t really help with the Tamiya primer questions. Except that I know thinner for it is lacquer thinner since it’s lacquer based.
