Air-brushing with Ceramcote paint

[tcf511]

I have a friend who is a very experienced modeler and he is teaching me the techniques of air-brushing. I'm doing fine with both Polly Scale and Testor's acrylic. I have a lot of Ceramcote paint that I use successfully with a brush but we couldn't get it to thin properly with either water or Polly S thinner. Do you any of you use Ceramcote and how do you thin it? Ours was very blotchy like the water or thinner wasn't mixing. Thanks.

[loathar]

I use Ceramacoat and other craft paint with good results on my structures. I mix up a quart of "thinner" by using 80% water and 20% isopropyl alcohol. I then use this to thin the paint down to about the consistency of milk. You need to use a little larger tip on your air brush and increase the air pressure a bit. I find around 30+ psi works pretty good. I don't use it on locos or cars. It doesn't seem to have as tough a finish as Polly Scale or other model paints.

[ChrisNH]

I have had some success with windshield fluid too.I think that ends up being about the same as loathar's suggestion. I do not know if the detergent content helps by breaking surface tension or is just a needless extra.

The only problems I have with the delta paints is sometimes they are a little thin pigment-wise by the time they are thinned and sometimes they do not adhere as well as I would like. Anotherr problem is it can be a bit chunky.. needs to be strained EVERY time. Most of my issues turned out to be operator error and related to proper thinning.. proper spray technique.. and getting the right pressure.

I got some liquitex airbrush medium really cheap on ebay and have been using that lately. I have not observed a big difference except I need less to get the thinning I want.

One thing that helped me was to pick up some pre-mix modelflex paint from badger and try using that to give me a "baseline" experience I could compare to what i was doing with the delta stuff.

Chris

[tcf511]

Thanks very much to both of you. I would only be using this paint on buildings. I'll try the 80/20 mix this weekend. There is a really good variety of colors so I hated to just give up on the paint. Out of curiosity, do you clean the parts with the same thinner mix?

[ChrisNH]

I use warm soapy water, per a number of articles I have read.

Chris