I saw the thread below and wanted to add my two cents in:

They are great for brush painting, far better then Tamiya. They make an EXCELLENT rust set that is dead flat and amazing looking when done right.

Seems like the big issue is with airbrushing them. Anyways, one thing that infuriated me with using them is that it would be like I was using a Water Spray bottle instead of my airbrush...the paint would bead up like water droplets on the primer and generally look like hell. Anyways, after sleeping on it and thinking about it for a while, it dawned on me (literary) to try to a tiny drop of dish soap in the mixed/thinned paint. Dish soap breaks down surface tension in water (which was casing the water beading), letting the paint flow better. I've seen this used in brush painting in other acrylic brand paints. After I did this, the paint sprayed very well! Speaking with some other modeling buddies, one suggested also trying some slo-dry liquid made for acrylics, but I haven't tried this yet. I don't remember having paint handling issues when I sprayed Life Color over a primer using this method, but it has been a while.

From my experience, there are two different types of acrylic paint..one is a latex based paint and the other is an alcohol based paint, that can be cleaned up with water, but you can also use a lacquer (refined alcohol) based thinner to cut the paint with for airbrushing. Lacquer thinner from Home Depot/big box stores is a bit too strong IMO for thinning paint...I've seen Tamiya paint start to separate using it. The Hobby Based Lacquer thinner from Tamiya,Gunze, and Gianotes is formatted different and won't damage the paint per say. Its great for cleaning out your airbrush otherwise...the dish soap trick doesn't work with alcohol based paint though.

I believe this is the following breakdown for Acrylic paint I've used, Latex vs Alcohol based:

Latex:

Vallejo
Games Workshop/Citadel
Polly Scale/Testors Acyrl
Life color

Alcohol based:

Tamiya
Gunze Acyrlic
Akan


Peter Griffin: Any problem caused by a tank can be solved by a tank.

brush painting and even more so, from my airbrush with their own thinner and have never had any of the problems I've read about.

To me if the paint is beading up it's because it is being sprayed on to heavily, too quickly. This is just my opinion however and a lot of what I read in that other thread sound more like operator error, not the paint. I'm not saying that in an accusatory, better than you way either, it's just based on my experiences with it. I've seen many people simply crank their airbrush wide open and flood the surface as well as the air around them, which really isn't what an airbrush is designed to do. If one pass total coverage is desired, a rattle can would probably be better suited for that purpose. Of course, this is all just my opinion and nothing more.

But, while I could write a novella here I will instead post a link to a video I made about three years ago as a part of a series for an online contest I took part in. You can watch me airbrush with it and brush paint with it and it performs rather flawlessly in light coats over Vallejo black primer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-mmtvMsEXQ



___________________________________
Build how you like, like how you build.

http://armorfarm.blogspot.com/

I think you should amp up that soundrack Ken, I am ready for a nap dude!
Outta here, Mike sends . . .

Blame Youtube for that brother, that's a youtube soundtrack and not the one I originally had.

They deleted my soundtracks after blocking my videos in various countries due to copy-write issues, even though you can find literally hundreds if not thousands of videos using songs from peoples favorite bands. Because I chose NOT to monetize my channel and have ads, I was punished so I simply took them all down.





___________________________________
Build how you like, like how you build.

http://armorfarm.blogspot.com/

Ken - you dirty Bstd! Where the heck is video #3? You hook the finishing of the tools on video #2..."watch the next video...you gotta see how I turn these baby poop yellow handles into a thing of beatuy" and then there is no #3. What Gives?

And don't worry about what Mike says about the background music, he obviously doens't appreciate good MUZAK when he hears it! (he he)

Later buddy,
Rick

lol Rick,

vid three and four are still on my channel unlisted along with video one and contain the same exact MUZAK track that cuts off too soon. (thanks youtube)

It's actually kinda' fun for me to watch now, I'm still using Floquil enamels for some stuff and I get to see just how many techniques I've dropped and all the stuff I do differently.

Have a happy fourth dude,
Ken



___________________________________
Build how you like, like how you build.

http://armorfarm.blogspot.com/