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Rattle cans have acetone in them, and they have much better adhesion than brush on primers like Citadel or Vallejo.

I'm not sure if acetone is the reason for rattle can primers sticking better, but would it be bad for an airbrush? I was thinking about mixing acetone into some acrylic paint and airbrushing it onto some scrap plastic to see how it affects paint adhesion.

Do you mean acetone is used as the thinner in the spray paint? I'm not sure about that, but I don't know anything about paint manufacturing.

All I use is an airbrush, though, and have no problems with priming - mostly I use Badger Minitaire.

You can decant the spray paint to use in an airbrush, though, it's fairly simple:
- get a bend straw and a plastic or paper cup
- bend the straw and put the long end into the cup
- spray directly into the straw until you have more paint than you want
- wait 20-30 minutes for the propellant gas to 'de-gas' from the paint, the amount of paint you have will be less at this point
- use the paint as normal in your airbrush

The paint from a rattle can will work beautifully in an airbrush.

The thinner inside them will be akin to what the paint spray industry used to thin paints in HVLP spray guns back when cellulose paints were the standard. Usual;y cellulose (1 pack) paint ; 2pack paints with a chemical activator (hardening agent) will go hard inside the can long before getting sprayed, but would be the industry standard for painting a car right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint_thinner
Acetone is not the only component in a quality paint thinner. although it is one.
Naptha is found in most good thinners too, aswell as MEK.
The real good thinners, are usualy a right witches brew of strong solvents.
Ontop of that, you can get recycled solvents, which are typically for just cleaning, for painting with youd want virgin solvents that have never been used before. Often labelled lacquer thinners.

These thinners will melt a plastic model for sure if not careful, youd want to keep the paint coverage kind of dry to avoid dousing the figures in the stuff.
Warm air to quickly evaporate the solvents off the figure might help.
And if using this stuff in your airbrush, WEAR A MASK... you should wear one for your regular water based stuff, but this is so much worse for your lungs! - and frankly solvent abuse aint even fun! Just nasty headaches and nausea!

Edit; for our acrylics, IPA can often be a nice thinner. Worth testing out with a small amount as certain paints dont react well with it and go nice and lumpy. Acrylics either thin really well with alcohol or react nastily... not much inbetween. The same IPA that is an awesome paint stripper for plastic figures.

Distilled water is your best friend.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
Distilled water is your best friend.

The whole point of this post was experimenting with paint adhesion properties. Distilled water does nothing there.

As for air quality, I already have VOC filters for a 3M mask that I use when spraying rattle can paint. I usually use a plain disposable mask when airbrushing.

I think I'll stick with acetone for now, since it's probably the most easily accessible solvent. I figure it'll either have a sort of 'etching' effect on the plastic and help the paint stick better, or it'll just wreck the surface and do nothing at all for paint adhesion.

I read somewhere that enamel paint is a lot better at being a primer, and acrylic paint just doesn't compare.

Acetone will lightly melt the plastic surface, which should give the paint a lot more surface area to hold on to.

Still not a great idea.