What is acrylic thinner?

[me and me lude]

anyone know?
is it just ethanol? (if so i'd just buy some metho (denatured alcohol) instead cos its cheaper)

[lotus_man]

I've used that before to thin Tamiya Acrylics and it worked OK... but I tend to use the Tamiya stuff now you can get it in a resonable sized container.

[mike@af]

Heres the run down for Tamiya:

Acrylic Thinner- I swear all that stuff is $8 rubbing alcohol. Smells like it, dissolves like it, feels like it. And even tastes like it I use rubbing alcohol to thin Tamiya paints and they thin the same way.

Rubbing Alcohol-Inexpensive, thins Tamiya Acrylics.

Just my

[me and me lude]

cool, i was hoping it was just ethanol

[MPWR]

If you thin with straight alcohol, you'll likely find that the paint dries much too fast as you spray it- leading to a flat, grainy finish, or orange peal. I have found that the very best way to thin acrylics, particularly Tamiya, but works great for Gunze, MM Acryl, and Polly S, is to mix distilled water and isopropyl alcohol in about a 2:1 ratio. Put this in a plastic dropper bottle, and squeeze however much you need into your paint. This way also gives you great control of the drying speed. Still drying too fast, add more watter. Too slow or pooling, more alcohol.

I've heard it rumored that Tamiya adds some special ingredient in their thinner, and without it, the gloss colors don't come out as shinny- but I've certanly never noticed an objective difference.

[bvia]

Tamiya adds a surfactant to the thinner which allows the paint to flow more smoothly over the surface. IIRC there is a product that Kodak makes that you can add to acrylic paints...they created it to help the developer completely coat the film during processing.

hth,
Bill

[Ken B.]

The guy that owns my local hobby store (who is also a prof. model builder) says you can use diluted alcohol for thinner with Tamiya paints. Hell, he even sells rubbing alchohol in the huge quart(?) bottles right next to the Tamiya paint display. But then again, all he paints is armor and aircraft models, so the flatter finish probably dosent bother him.