what is the best thinnning ratio for enamels such as model masters ???
I use the old tried and true method, it should be the consistancy of 2% milk.
is it 3 to 1 or 2 to 1?
1 part thinner to 3 parts paint or you can try 50/50.
It will vary from jar to jar. I have had some MM paints that I barely ahd to thin at all because they were so thin out of the bottle.
I’d always heard the 2% rule, but never really quite visualized it.
So I went and bought a gallon of 2% milk. (And a box of Cocoa Pebbles… [:D])
I mix paint in these little plastic jars I got from Hobby Lobby. So I poured a little milk in it, and looked at it… I mean really studied it. I used a toothpick to pull some up the sides and see how fast it ran back down, how it clinged to the sidewalls, how it behaved if I sloshed it around.
I find it’s much easier to thin it visually, so to speak, than trying to determine a ratio. I never measure anyway. [;)]
Since I did that little experiment- plus some great advice from Ross on some tricks for Pollyscale paints, my airbrushing has gone very smooth!
i use tamiya paints mostly cause of convienience and i rarely use model masters only for certain colors any suggestion on how to mix those model master paints???
There is no correct ratio because of bottle-to-bottle variation. Even if you are dealing with identical colors. I’ve had a bottle that was perfect for airbrushing (and no it was not marketed as such) while I’ve have other bottles that were the consistency of thick cream or syrup and needed a lot of thinner. For one starting out, I can appreciate the frustration, but you really just have to experiment and practice. You’ll quickly get the hang of it.
Andy
thanks for the help guys
You can try dipping a toothpick into the mix and checking the viscosity that way. Properly thinned, a drop should form and fall off at roughly the same size & speed as the afore-mentioned milk. So if you eyeball a few milk drops and lock that image in your brain, you should be able to gauge the paint’s viscosity that way…
Just make sure you get some eye-droppers or my personal pref, plastic pipettes, for measuring ratios… It’s a lot easier to count drops than it is to count splashes…
I normally just thin my paint like this. Open the bottle, stirr it with a tooth pick. I pull it out, and globby paint on it I stick back in, add thinner. Mix more, repeat. When there is no more glob I have thinned it enough.
I usually start with a 50/50 ratio - test that and then adjust the ratio as needed to work properly