White spirit to thin enamels?

[Guest]

Hi

As title really, do others use simple white spirit to thin down enamels?

Ta

Tim.

[Guest]

It can be done but I would always recommend using the correct paint thinners. It is undoubtedly more expensive but it is designed specifically for the paint being thinned and, as such, evaporates at the same rate as the paint. This is important particularly when spraying gloss finishes.

If finish is not too important such as matt surfaces on a military vehicle you could probably get away with it but if you are particularly concerned about the finish I would use the corrrect thinners.

As for brush cleaning, once again the right stuff is a better solvent but you should be OK with white spirit, unless you want the brush to be spotles for a high gloss finish.

[Guest]

Hello Timmah

I am no expert and it is better to use the branded thinners

I have used White Spitits quite often especialy in summer as the paint dries a lot slower

the Gloss is a bit duller

But with some newer Humbrol enamel there has been a bad reaction making the paint usless

But as allways there is more than one way to do things so try it on some scrap if it works for you great

[Guest]

i personally use white spirits to thin revell enamels. it works fine but if i must say you do need to use quite a bit more than you would think and spray at a considerably higher pressure. but the finish is fine even for a high gloss one.

not sure about other brands though such has humbrol, older revell...etc

[Guest]

I use the white spirit to thin Revell and Humbrol paints and they work fine. I feel they work better on Revell Paints though.

[Guest]

Being from down under, I just checked Wikipedia for White Spirit, it appears that it is totally compatible with enamel paints.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spirit

Following this thru, you come to this page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_spirits

Then this page leads you to this page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpentine_substitute

Now this last lot is the stuff I use all the time, you can buy this stuff at the local grocers store, if you just mix the enamel with this mineral turpentine 50 / 50, give it a shake, mix, whatever. Then start spraying the gloss enamel and when you reckon you have a good colour coat on the model, empty the colour out of the spray jar, fill it up with neat, plain mineral turps and while the paint is still wet, start spraying on the plain turps, only giving it light dusting coats with this straight turps, one or two coats is required, then put the model under cover ( cardboard box ) to stop any dust from settling on it.

What this does is actually thin down the top of the wet colour paint and draw it out nice and smooth.

You get an excellent gloss finish by doing this, if you just spray on the colour and leave it, you can and will get a faint orange peel look to the finish coat, spray on the plain turps and bingo, mirror type finish.

Give it a go and see what results you can get, you can use whatever you thinned the paint with, as it will then be compatible with the paint.

regards radish