enamel or acrylic

[Medicman71]

Like Borg said, I use acrylics cause of ease of cleaning and no harsh chemical fumes.

[RexCag]

It is a bit too late for someone like Phil. I am sure he has found what he needed by now.

But, one word of warning for any New Airbrush User. The first thing you need to learn is the last part of the painting process with an Airbrush.

The most important thing to learn first is how any certain paint you have chosen is cleaned up.
That is because you can have a great day with the Airbrush, and go to clean it, and find that you have made an expensive mistake.

Figure out what cleans your paint brand the best, both when it is still wet, and when it dries up. You will always need to clean the airbrush when all goes right. And everyone that has ever used an Airbrush will tell you that sometimes you have to clean dried paint out of it.

Get some steel or brass sheet, just any flat piece of metal or plastic that matches what your airbrush is made of. Paint it with a paintbrush, and experiment with different cleaning methods that will remove dried paint from them.

A small sheet of steel or brass is much cheaper than having to post "helllppppp, my paint dried in my airbrush, how do I get it out of there!!!!"

So, start at the end, with cleaning, and then work on thinning ratios, etc, for normal model painting. Your wallet will thank you in the end. And your nerves will too, since you found one more way not to get them all frayed and angry with you.

[Thomas_M]

Rex, I fully agree! However, a good quality airbrush should be able to withstand any common-sense cleaning these days. Using Mr.Paint, Gunze, or Tamiya acrylics as well as MiG/ AK paints I so far can easily clean them with Revell´s Airbrush Cleaner with no problems. I also try not to let any paint dry in my airbrush, it gets cleaned at the end of each airbrushing session. Not only sprayed through, but disassembled and cleaned!
I also store my airbrushes, when not in use, with the needle out of the corpus. I think this allows the internal seals to slightly expand over time, making them seal even better when the AB is in use later. But I have no proof for this, it´s just the way I do it.

[RexCag]

Thomas, I am thinking of all of the "wrong" answers that happen in modeling threads.

Unless a person has already researched how to clean his airbrush, before spraying anything through it, he can easily run afoul of the early answers in a thread, done by people that "think" something "should be alright", based just on that poster's logic, and not experience with the product being asked about.

For example, right now, on another site, much larger than this,,,,,,,,,there is an answer echoed by many in the thread, that "all you need is Lacquer thinner" to clean out an airbrush. And the "I always use Lacquer thinner" etc, etc, answers that piggy back that.

This is of no help to those that switched to Acrylics (water based) in order to avoid the vapors. Another common answer is when someone uses these paints for hand-brushing, and gives his "best guess" that thinning them the same way will work on an Airbrush. When, not if, a person falls for one of these "stock answers" from someone that doesn't even use an airbrush, and gets that "glop" thing with his paints due to incompatible thinners in the paints,,,,,,,,,he needs to already know how to clean it back out. Once the glop occurs, even the time it takes to type out "helpppp, I have glop in my airbrush" adds drying time to it as he waits for answers to help solve his problem. And more than half of those posts will still be just "opinions" instead of actual facts, making the problem worse, if those things are followed.

That is why I recommend having a plan for cleaning up front, instead of after something happens.

But, again, remember that I do things differently,,,,,,,,I mix stuff with my paints in a palette and poke at them with a stick, just to see what happens when those different things dry. (or never dry, lol)

I am a big fan of teaching people where the Fire Extinguishers are and how to use them,,,,,,,,,before they are needed, not while they are standing in a fire.

[Thomas_M]

...
I am a big fan of teaching people where the Fire Extinguishers are and how to use them,,,,,,,,,before they are needed, not while they are standing in a fire.

Rex, I think this is a clever move!

There´s absolutely nothing wrong trying things out before going into (airbrushing) action. If there are a new brand of colours on the market (Mission Models are about to show here in Germany!) I also first try them on unused parts. My way of doing is to use the respective thinner of each brand of colours I use. I try not to mix things up! There is simply no saving in doing so! Others may disagree...

[RexCag]

I am going to try Mission Models new paints as well. I also want to try out their primer.

Did you notice that they have a Pink primer, for help in painting Red? I will definitely give that one a try, too.

I am just waiting for my "April Allowance", then I can place an order with them and try things out.

[Stikpusher]

I just saw Mission Models paints at a LHS yesterday. Their selection looks right up my ally, but I am reluctant to buy as I know nothing about them. Do you gentlemen have any info on them to share?

[Thomas_M]

Stik,
while on Wangerooge, one of the guys there used them painting a Leopard II, among others. Asking about his opinion, he told me to be very happy with them. He airbrushed the 3-colour camo with almost no overspray and no need to clean his airbrush due to dried paint on the nozzle.

Wouldn´t I already use too many brands of paints I surely would give them a "Go". Maybe later.

[Stikpusher]

Yes, reading up on them, their performance sounds excellent. And they have some colors that I have not seen before, but do need, especially for armor. But I don't want to go down the Vallejo path and add yet another brand to my workbench, that needs multiple additives of only their own line. I would really love to hear if the paints thin well with a generic product such as denatured alcohol.

Enamels are so easy by comparison. Compatible with one another and all thin with the same products. Acrylic brands each seem to have their own arcane formulas and incompatibilities.

[RexCag]

Stik, when I get mine for testing, I will do my usual "what does this do?" tests of the paints and the primers.

I don't mind turning paints or primers into "glop" if I do it under controlled conditions, such as in the depressions of a plastic art palette.

I will also try Mission's thinner in some other Acrylics, just to see what they will turn into.

I will then make lists to remember which is a disaster, and which work well together.

As for "Acrylics" having unique mixing properties,,,,,,,as long as they are batched together in the three types, (four?), things can be interchanged. It does appear that Missions "Acrylic Primer" is creating another type of Acrylic "paint", due to the activating Poly-Urethane properties of it.

Acrylic types (not all the same, and not always compatible with each other)

Acrylic-Water based
Acrylic-Alcohol based
Acrylic-Enamel
Acrylic-Lacquer
Acrylic-PolyUrethane

Remember, "Acrylic" only means that the pigment is made up of colored plastic bits, finely ground up into a paint medium. (we have Acrylic windows in some applications)

We should be talking about Acrylic and "Organic" paints as the split, and then the formulas,,,,,but, "acrylic" has been in use for so long that people don't say the difference between Acrylic Lacquer and Water-based Acrylics such as LifeColors. But, once someone mixes the two together, or uses Water-based thinners in an Acrylic Lacquer,,,,,,,,,that person will never forget that they are indeed different classes of paints.