A friend of mine who owned a hobby shop recently closed his doors and as a result, I inherited a boat-load of acrylic paint. I normally use regular enamels or lacquers. I have used them once and it was a bad experience. So, I have questions:

1) What do you use for a thinner?
2) how thin do you thin?
3) what do you use for clean up? ( I have some cleaner but it suggest soaking stuff overnight. I'm not too thrilled about that.)
4) What PSI are you shooting at?
5) are you prepping your surface and with what?
6) How do you prevent clogging while shooting?

I'm sure I'll think of some more as this progresses.


Thanks for your time!
Steve

Hey there Steven,

Really depends on what Acrylics you are talking about. Tamiya?, Vallejo?, Testors?, Lifecolor?, something else?

Best thinner to use for airbrushing is the brand's own thinner, it is formulated for their paint, therefore you are going to have the best results.

How to thin? Again, depends on the brand of paint. Tamiya is a simple 50/50 thinner to paint. Vallejo is a little more involved in thinning.

For clean up, best thing to use for acrylics is acrylic cleaner. Testors makes some, as well as Vallejo.

PSI....depends, but should be about the same as any other paint you have been using. Also depends on what type of airbrush you have. If it is a gravity feed, you can probably get away with 10-15lbs. Siphon feed you might need a bit more.

Prep for airbrushing, same as using any other paint, should be using a primer.

As far as clogging in the airbrush....the harks back to using the proper thinner. Using the paint brand's thinner, and the paint properly thinned, you shouldn't have much trouble.

Hello Steve,
Scott pretty well sums it all up.

and if I may add that I myself and fellow modelers have used "Windex" as
a cleaner for dried up brushes and as an airbrush cleaner.
It will remove all dried up acrylics and does a great job at clearing an
airbrush. Can even be used as a paint stripper....the ammonia will just
about eat away at any acrylic in no time.

DO NOT USE AS A THINNER THOUGH AS SOME MAY SUGGEST!

and after use as a cleaner, always run your brushes through water
and run some water thru the AB to remove any Windex reside.

It works great and is real cheap.

Cheers,
Joe