Lacquer thinner for airbrushing enamels?

[Steamboat]

Can lacquer thinner be used as a reducer for airbrushing Testors enamels?  I still have a lot of them. I would like to have a hardware store substitute for Testors airbrush thinner.  Trying not to pay $5 for 1.75 ounces. 

I also have acetone, mineral spirits, xylene, naphtha and automotive paint reducer.  What are you guys using?

[StevenGuthmiller]

Short answer......Yes!

As a matter of fact, there are benefits to using enamel thinned with lacquer thinner.

 

 

Steve

[Bainford]

Yup, I agree 100%. Hardware store lacquer thinner was my thinner of choice for Testors and other hobby enamels for many years. 

[Steamboat]

I just tried mixing Model Master clear coat with lacquer thinner and it looks really cloudy.  Maybe it only works with colors?

[Belugawrx]

Test it on something you don't care about first

[Shark]

Lacquer thinner also speeds up drying time

[Bills72sj]

I used Testors bottle enamel thinned 50/50 with hardware store lacquer thinner. I love the results.

[Steamboat]

6 hours ago, Bills72sj said:

I used Testors bottle enamel thinned 50/50 with hardware store lacquer thinner. I love the results.

Wow!  I agree.  You can't argue with success!


 

 

[Dave G.]

What you have to watch for with hardware lacquer thinner is that you get the original medium dry stuff. There is now " green friendly" lacquer thinner. Also, at least around my area, fast dry lacquer thinner.

I personally believe that Testors enamels thinned with LT produces a better finish when airbrushed than using the Testors reducer. The fast dry thinner though, is really too fast a dry time, and the synthetic green label stuff is just simply junk.

Another good combo, I would consider second after the lacquer thinner for airbrushing, is to mix 50/50 Hardware store paint thinner ( not lacquer thinner but paint thinner), with HWS odorless mineral spirits. And thin the Testors with that combo.

[Nicholas]

i recommend using mr color levelling thinner,its a med./slow drying thinner,i never had good luck with hardwaqre store lacquer thinner,usually dries too fast leaving a rougher finish instead of self levelling like the mr hobby

[Steamboat]

All good advice!  Thanks guys. I'll play around with it and let you know what works.

[deuces wild]

Test on plastic spoons....😉

[Dave G.]

If you take the little square bottle Testors enamel and empty it out into a mixing cup, there will still be paint residue in the bottle. Then re-fill that with the hardware store lacquer thinner, shake it up and pour into your container of paint you just poured out and stir together. It gives you just a tad short of a true 50/50 blend when all is mixed together. And it works perfectly. There should be no rough dry finish from airbrushing it, assuming shooting it moderately wet and a full wet last coat. With gloss paint, you should see yourself in the glass smooth finish. I shoot it up near 30 psi though, with the Paasche H #3 tip, even sometimes with the #5.

You can do the same for lesser jobs using a pipette .

 

[Steamboat]

2 hours ago, Dave G. said:

If you take the little square bottle Testors enamel and empty it out into a mixing cup, there will still be paint residue in the bottle. Then re-fill that with the hardware store lacquer thinner, shake it up and pour into your container of paint you just poured out and stir together. It gives you just a tad short of a true 50/50 blend when all is mixed together. And it works perfectly. There should be no rough dry finish from airbrushing it, assuming shooting it moderately wet and a full wet last coat. With gloss paint, you should see yourself in the glass smooth finish. I shoot it up near 30 psi though, with the Paasche H #3 tip, even sometimes with the #5.

You can do the same for lesser jobs using a pipette .

 

Thanks for the tip.  That's good advice.  I will definitely try it with colors but I'm still a little leery about the cloudiness when I mix lacquer thinner with clear.  Here's the clear I'm using.  It's actually Boyd's by Testors.  

I've been playing around with the clear and this thinner that I got at the boat store and never used.  It looks promising, but I only brushed it on so far. It's a little "oily" and has a longish cure time but dries with a good sheen.

[johnyrotten]

I was curious and looked that up. It's a slow drying reducer, according to the one site I looked at. I'm not a painter or chemist, perhaps there's a difference between a reducer and an actual "thinner"? Could explain the cloudiness. I'd like to know myself,  I've got 3/4 gallon of reducer in the garage. 

[peteski]

Your "thinner for marine coatings" does not mention on the label that it is a "lacquer thinner".  Pick up a small can of actual lacquer thinner from a hardware store and test it out.  Also different brands of lacquer thinners have different formulations, but generally they all work well with solvent-based enamels like Testors.

Edited January 1 by peteski

[Dave G.]

I can't really help on the clear enamel because I have no reason to use clear enamel. The classic era cars and antique cars that I tend to build get straight color, no clear coat if shot in enamel.. And any other paints I use that may get cleared, aren't enamels, so I wouldn't clear those with enamel anyway.

The last time I cleared something in enamel was back in the 1970's and that yellowed. So really it was clear amber hue lol !!

[Rick L]

The industry itself makes this confusing. Some manufacturers refer to their reducers as thinners. In general reducers are used for urethanes and boat gel coats that are styrene based. They will reduce paints but again, as others have said, you need to experiment first.

[kurth]

I seem to remember several videos on youtube popping up at about the same time a few years ago, and maybe even the technique being discussed here, where you pour a small testors bottle in a 3 ounce airbrush bottle, then filling it with hardware store lacquer thinner. The results looked impressive. I never tried it. I would be concerned, like Dave G. says, the lacquer thinner you see in the stores now is a different blend. I think it is much harsher, it does a great job cleaning but I would be concerned about it attacking styrene. 

I recently used Mr. Rapid Thinner to spray some floquil silver enamel, which worked great. Were I to airbrush small bottle testors, or Model master, I would use one of the mild lacquer thinners, like the Mr Hobby thinners, or Tamiya Lacquer thinner. 

 

[StevenGuthmiller]

It doesn't need to be confusing.

Just pick up a can of hardware store lacquer thinner, (it'll set you back all of about $5.00) and mix it about 50/50 with your paint.

Should look about the consistency of whole milk.

Run a little through your airbrush to see if it sprays the way you want it too prior to doing the actual painting.

If not, add a little more thinner at a time until it sprays how you want it to.

Seriously, it's not rocket science, and all that you're going to gain is a headache if you make it any more complicated than it needs to be.

 

 

Steve

[Dave G.]

Really my only concern about hardware store lacquer thinner being used in Testors square bottle paints, was to get the original blend lacquer thinner. Because as I said, around here there are two more blends in the same brand name. One being a fast dry thinner, really just designed for cleaning, the other the green friendly synthetic junk. The original in the brand I use is medium dry rate and works very well at a 50/50 or so ratio in Testors paints. Also to further thin decanted Rustoleum 2x paints for airbrushing.. It last I knew still came in the blue can with orange label area on the front. But the listing for medium dry used to be in the fine print, no longer there. But the fast dry says fast dry right on the front. Blue can, white label area.

And if you can still find a can for $5, I envy you. I haven't seen $5 for the stuff in a decade.

[Dave G.]

This is the green environmental stuff

Then this is the original. If you can see the back label, around the second paragraph is a statement, with in which it says Medium Dry:

[Dave G.]

[Dave G.]

21 minutes ago, Dave G. said:

This is the fast dry. It California compliant according to the add. In that case, it's probably mostly acetone.

[Dave G.]

This one is medium fast dry, professional grade: