Airbrush Paint Thinner

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Hospital_Rocket

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Is it just me or is the bottle of airbrush thinner I just bought the single most expensive bottle of window cleaner on the market?

A
 
yep,not cheap, but it probably contains chemicals that lubricate the workings and protects the seals,that window cleaner won't do.

or some contain a bonding chemical ,,,

because keep in mind that water,windshield fluid,windex that people commonly like to thin with, has no bonding qualitys at all... so it considerably weakens the final paint bond...

better to pay a little extra for paint jobs that won't peel or chip off later.
 
Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
Is it just me or is the bottle of airbrush thinner I just bought the single most expensive bottle of window cleaner on the market?

A

Which thinner did you buy?
 
Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
Is it just me or is the bottle of airbrush thinner I just bought the single most expensive bottle of window cleaner on the market?

A

Ah Ha ha.... I've never bought a bottle of air bursh thinner in my entire airbrushing life. I take that back I did buy a bottle of testors airbrush thinner to use with the buffing metallics I apply with lettering burshes. Use the thinner specified for the type coating your applying.
Did I mention my oil base air brush spends its time between jobs immersed in mineral spirits? No it doesn't hurt the brush or the seals. Over the past 22 years I think i've ruined two airbrushes one single action I ran over with the truck and a dual action I dropped from atop an 8 foot step ladder.
Stymye couldn't have said it better concerning bonding in the dried paint film. Most of those other "thinners" mentioned do nothing for the airbrush or the coating your applying.
Air bursh thinners are a rip-off mainly because they are sold to the Hobbiest, If you can get the stuff in gallons or 5gal pails or maybe 16gal drums I'm sure it competative with 'Normal" Oil based thinners. Buy the best (sometimes most expensive) thinner for the specific type of paint your using. Airbursh thinner is almost Never it;)
Hope this helps and maybe saves you guys some money.
 
Air bursh thinners are a rip-off mainly because they are sold to the Hobbiest

So true. Ever price out the paints sold at your typical hobby shop in the little jars? 1/2oz, 1oz and 2oz sizes are typical. If you scale the quantities up to quarts and gallons, many of these paints come out to be much more expensive than even the high-end automotive paints like House of Kolor. That was an eye-opening exercise for me! I'm talking several hundreds of dollars per gallon.
 
The stuff I bought is by a company called Polly-S by Floquil.

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Was not real expensive, I was just having some diffiiculty with certain water based acrylics.

BTW our Edwards here had a local sale of the 2oz acrylics - $0.25 each. I went on a buying frenzy.

A
 
same here , no thinner except to clean with

the cheap paints are tempting and do work fine but as your probably finding out, they can take some experimenting. I've had mixed results so far with them. some spray well ,some are terrible

cheap paint= lots of thinner=fiddling with ratios =often so-so results and you can end up with large particles suspended in a thin liquid that will run like crazy and weak adhesion

on the other end of the spectrum you have
relativly expensive paint=extreemly fine particles= no thinner =excellent results everytime.

just a matter of finding what works best in your set up
airbrush, pressure, nozzle .thickness.

keep qoing , your on a roll !
 
BTW, I found an MSDS for Polly S thinner.

At least among the ingredients they are required to list, it includes ethanol, PROPYLENE GLYCOL METHYL ETHER (1-METHOXY-2-PROPANOL) and/or PROPYLENE GLYCOL MONO METHYL ETHER.

No ammonia, and therefore not like a window cleaner. (see change below)

No ingredients listed, either, that have any film forming properties. I.e. it is just it only what it says it is - a thinner, not a binder of any sort.


(Amended comments)
Well, it turns out that glycol ethers *are*, in fact, used in some window cleaners Windex included - my mistake. Turns out Windex is glycol ether + alcohol + water. Hmmm. Sounds remarkably similar to.... airbrush thinner!
 
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