Hand brushing Tamiya paints?

[Ian]

I wonder if Tamiya's Thinner is the same thing?

 

[Dusky]

Definitely not. Tamiya's acrylic paints are alcohol based and their thinner is a mix of isopropyl and butyl alcohol. Vallejo and alcohol don't play well together. Vallejo's thinner is 100% acrylic resin according to the bottle.

You can find a very detailed Vallejo FAQ on their website. http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/model-paints/faqs/3

 

[Ian]

Looks like you can also use Future to thin too (according to some quick Google searching). That's probably pretty close to acrylic resin. Maybe I'll grab a bottle of that from the hardware store tomorrow.

The thinning with alcohol might explain my first weird looking painting this evening. Won't be doing that again!

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

I have done nothing by thin my Model color with water when brush painting, and it works fine.

Really depends on the water in your house. When they dry, the minerals in your water can deposit on the paint and change the color. So if you have relatively harsh or hard water. Might be better to use their thinner, or at the very least distilled water.

The water here comes from a spring and is filtered enough that I don't have that problem, but I can see how some would.

No...don't use Tamiya thinner with the Vallejo paints, not the same base at all, and for the most part will gel the paint. Maybe not so bad brush painting, but imagine trying to get it out of your airbrush!

Future will work, have a client that swears by it....Future is just a clear acrylic resin.

Vallejo's thinner is not acrylic resin, however their paint is.

Vallejo thinner is:

2-butoxyethanol and is an organic solvent. It is a colorless liquid with a sweet, ether-like odour. It is a butyl ether of ethylene glycol.

As well has some lubricating oils in it, which acts like a retarder to keep your paint from drying too quickly. Don't really have to worry about that much for brush painting, more for airbrushing.

 

[Dusky]

I use distilled water, but still have issues. It's a preference to use Vallejo thinner.

I've heard Future will work as well, but have never tried it.

It's funny how misleading labels can be. Just like how MicroSet is labeled as a decal remover, but the Microscale site says to use MicroSol.

You wouldn't happen to have MSDSs for the Vallejo products? 2-butoxyethanol is pretty nasty stuff, though nowhere near as bad as ethylene glycol.

EDIT: I found MSDS for Vallejo products. The only things listed in the MSDS for the thinner are Amorphous Silica and Propylene Glycol which would make a lot more since. Propylene Glycol is relatively harmless and is used in all sorts of things including paint retarders and eye drops.
http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/security

 

[Daf57]

I've had the best luck with Liquitex Airbrush Medium or Vallejo's thinner for the model color series paints. I started out using their thinner but have since switched to the Liquitex - both work perfectly for me.

 

[JMac]

Vallejo has two types of thinner on the market. The 70.524 (shown above) and the 72.261 ( which is what I think ECH might be referring to). I thin my Model Color & Model Air paints with the 70.524 ( 1:1 or 2:1 thinner to paint - for brush painting) and maybe a little dash distilled water depending on the paint consistency, and the object I'm painting.

 

[Daf57]

This is the thinner I have - this must be the 72.261. Really not sure what the big difference between all of them are tho.

[attachment deleted by admin]

 

[Dusky]

I don't think they are any different other than size, but I can't find any MSDS for the 72261. I sent Vallejo an email requesting it.

EDIT: I can't find any Vallejo product with the number 72261. I did, however, find Vallejo product 71261 which is their Airbrush Thinner and the MSDS for it says the same as the other thinner.

 

[JMac]

EDIT: I can't find any Vallejo product with the number 72261. I did, however, find Vallejo product 71261 which is their Airbrush Thinner and the MSDS for it says the same as the other thinner.

The part number 72.261 came from the website (in the catalogue it's listed as part number 71.261).
http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/model-paints/auxiliary-products/3

I can't say a thing about the chemical components, but the new Airbrush thinner is clear and basically colourless. The older thinner 70.542 is white and looks similar to milk in terms of colour and viscosity. I have not tried the new thinner as yet (I will when I use up my rather large stock pile of the old stuff). The MSDS doesn't say much about what's in the thinner either, only that it does not contain any of the hazardous components identified earlier in the document.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

There are now 2 types of thinner from Vallejo.

The old thinner was 70524 (17ml, picture above), 71061 (30ml picture above) and 71161 200ml

These were originally the cloudy, milky type thinner that I think your finding the Amorphous Silica and Propylene Glycol in.

70524 has been left as it, however 71061 and 71161 have been replaced by the new Airbrush Thinner, which is the 2-butoxyethanol and lubricant, (roughly 20% 2-butoxyethanol, and less than 1% lubricant, the rest is water)

I have used both. And while I was used to thinning the Model Color with the old style thinner, it had a steep learning curve when it came to thinning them to be airbrushed (thinning for brush painting...is easy, just mix till it looks right), because what would work as a thinning ratio with one color, might not work with another.

Then along comes the new Airbrush thinner, and it is basically 2 to 3 parts thinner to 1 part paint, and works every time (at least for what I have been painting).

As far as 2-butoxyethanol being nasty stuff....there isn't enough in the solution to be of any danger, otherwise the bottles would be plastered with warnings, as Vallejo is pretty good about that. And actually 2-butoxyethanol, is what most Acrylic cleaners you use to clean your airbrush with are made out of.

Here is a little blurb about the effects of it I found:

People exposed to high levels of 2-butoxyethanol for several hours reported irritation of the nose and eyes, headache, a metallic taste in their mouths, and vomiting. No harmful effects were seen on their lungs or hearts. People who swallowed large amounts of cleaning agents containing 2-butoxyethanol have shown breathing problems, low blood pressure, low levels of hemoglobin (the substance in the blood that carries oxygen to organs of the body), acidic blood, and blood in the urine.

It is not known whether 2-butoxyethanol or 2-butoxyethanol acetate can affect reproduction or cause birth defects in people.

Animal studies have shown hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells that results in the release of hemoglobin) from exposure to 2-butoxyethanol and 2-butoxyethanol acetate. High doses of 2-butoxyethanol can also cause reproductive problems and minor birth defects in animals.

So...unless you are free basing it, using it in your coffee as an additive, or just hot boxing the fumes, you should be alright, as long as you take the normal precautions you normally would when building and painting. Most of the glues/cements we use are more harmful than this stuff, so if you do what you do when you use the cements we use, then you should be fine.

 

[Dusky]

So I'll have to stick with adding propylene glycol to my coffee.


Acetone is safer than 2-butoxyethanol, though the acetone would likely be more irritating. Ironically the modeling product I've found to irritate me the most has been the nontoxic citrus smelling cements like Weldene.