My usual painting technique is to use Tamiya acrylics for airbrushing and their enamels (imported from Japan) for brush painting.
I recently discovered Tamiya paint retarder and thought I’d try it out. I used Tamiya acrylics and put a couple of drops of paint in a pallette, and added 1 drop of Tamiya retarder. It works great! I used it with flat black, gold leaf, chrome silver and metallic gray and painted on plastic spoons. All colours went on very nicely. Chrome silver and gold leaf needed a second coat, but the other 2 were fine without a second. There was no pulling up when I applied the 2nd coat, and it basically went on much like an enamel would. It levels perfectly. The only downside is it takes a while to dry.
For those who have given up on brush painting Tamiya acrylic, I would highly recommend you try their retarder. It’s dead easy, just add 1 drop to a couple of drops of paint. That’s it.
I will no longer import their enamel paints, as this works just as well.
Anyone else have good success with this?
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Not with just the retarder, at least so far; I keep meaning to try it. But their X-20A thinner is said to have retarder in it as well, and I’ve had good success brush-painting their acrylics that way.
That said, I shall give the other a try soon. Thanks for posting your experience
I second Blue’s comment. Makes brush painting Tamiya’s paint so much easier.
It does help with brush painting.
The directions on the bottle of retarder say to not add more than 10% to your paint. I mix my retarder into their X-20A thinner at about an 80/20 ratio, then I use that mixture with their acrylic paint at about 50/50 for airbrushing. But if you are happy with your ratio, I won’t tell you to stop.
And yes, Tamiya acrylic paint/thinner already has some retarder in it, but sometimes more helps.
I too tried some of the retarder and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked! I was the same way…I AB’d with Tamiya acrylics and usually used Testor enamels for hand brushing. But the retarder worked well with the acrylics and now I just mix that up when needed.