tamiya x20a thinner

[Guest]

Hi all,

only been using an airbrush for 6 months and luckily with decent results. I hve mainly stuck to Vallego Model Air as it does not require thinning but i am starting to use the odd Humbrol, Tamiya paint which does. My question is would the Tamiya x20a thinner thin Humbrol or any other non tamiya paint and can i use it to clean my airbrush.

Many thanks Tony

[Guest]

I'm really no expert but one would imagine that unless the Humbrol is acrylic then the Tamiya X20A won't thin it? I will happily stand corrected because I don't really know.

What I would say though is that if you are going to use X20A then buy a big bottle of it (about £5-6 or so for 250ml) because the small 10ml jars are totally extortionate pro rata compared to the big bottle. I bought two big bottles of X20A and haven't looked back. As far as I know X20A is based on IPA (Isopropyl Alcohol) which I use to clean my airbrush but using proprietary thinners seems like a pricey way to clean your tools!

I'm sure someone with much more knowledge will be along shortly :-)

[Guest]

I don't use Tamiya thinner - much too expensive! Grab yourself some isopropanol alcohol from ebay - fraction of the price, and thins Tamiya acrylics with a 50/50 ratio. Cleans the airbrush too.

[simontie]

or if you want you could just use windscren cleaner thats what i use for the tamiya paints its £5-6 quid for 5 ltrs trust me i will last for ever as long as you buy the one with the low temp -16 ish or lower it has a higher alchohol content and the blue tint so far has'nt effected my paint. not sure about the humberol but i would think you will need a heavy duty thinner only issue is these tend to rot the rubber seals over a period of time.

simon

[yak face]

thanks to snappers advice ive just received a 1litre bottle of IPA courtesy of e-bay, £6.90 and free postage, thats a hell of a lot cheaper than tamiya thinners and it looks and smells exactly the same! Ive always known that IPA is a good alternative to tamiya thinners but i never knew where to get it, I just never thought of e-bay, i suppose i didnt think that sending flammable liquids through the post would be allowed,but obviously it is!!!, cheers tony

[The Migrant]

Here in Canada you can buy IPA from pharmacies (chemists), it's fairly cheap and does indeed work well with Tamiya paints. I've had the best results though using Tamiya's own-brand lacquer thinner for their acrylics. It sprays beautifully and dries very hard, but unlike regular lacquer thinner doesn't attack plastic. Great stuff, but hard-to-find here because of import/labelling issues. Fortunately, I have quite a bit of the stuff stockpiled.