Thinner and Meth. Spirits?? Can i use spirits?

[Guest]

Hey everyone! Last night I was painting my US armoured troops from the Vietnam war and came across something I needed to ask!

I saw a great thread on here of a tutorial on how to paint shadows on figures (thinner for enamel paint or watering out the acrylic) and thought I'd give it a go!

I used a combination of XF-49 Khaki and XF-61 Dark Green for the uniform (reference here Tamiya Color - Acrylic Paint).

Then I thought since these colours combined turn out to be really dark I thought id use a Tar kind of colour to make the shadow (I only had this in enamel). So I thinned it out with Tamiya Thinner. The detail looks so much better now however I still need much more practice in applying it and think I have used a colour that is way too dark.

With thinning out enamels however, could I use instead Meth. Spirits because 14ml Thinner costs $5 AUS which is very expensive.

Thanks!!

[Ian M]

I think you might get a better result with Mineral terpentine, or white spirit as its also known as. Try it on a bit of scrap or old kit. Some times the wronge thinners will make the paint clump or even more fun you get a soup of thinners with loads of little beads of paint in. Spotty paint anybody?!?!?

Ian M

[Guest]

Turps or turpentine substitute should do the trick nicely, Meths here has a purple dye in it and I do know that when I use it in my homemade pop can trekking alcohol stove it leaves purple staining on the inner walls of the stove, for that reason I'd be concerned it would affect the overall colour cast?

Thinking about that further, Meths is denatured alcohol, evidenced by the fact it burns cleanly with no soot or residue hence the use in alcohol stoves and Trangias etc, for this reason it wouldn't mix very cleanly with enamel paint. Turps or white spirit is definitely the way to go here.

[stona]

As above,turpentine or a turpentine substitute would be available from any artists supply store. Those stores can be a treasure trove for modellers. Cheaper and adequate for you would be hardware store bought white spirit (UK). I think you call this mineral spirit down under.

Cheers

Steve