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I ran out of airbrush thinner but feel need to get more airbrushing done so I would get all my blood angels ready from airbrushing stage. I expect to get more of real stuff next week's sunday when I go to tournament. Local shop doesn't have them and delivery time is 2 weeks.

Is there major difference between vallejo airbrush thinner and vallejo's regular thinner? Major as in causing definite issues or is name difference more of branding or for very advanced user? (I'm such a noob air brusher that if it has miniscular effect on quality it would likely not be noticable over my poor airbrushing skills).

You should be fine.

That's good to hear. I'm mainly worried if it would somehow increase clogging danger noticably. That's the curse I seem to suffer. Damn thing keeps clogging so that flow becomes uneven. Wasn't too bad yesterday doing bases but with blood angels I need bit more control over the damn thing.

Likely to get a bit more tip dry. Airbrush thinner tends to have a retardant (usually glycol) in it.

I'd say it's worth a try, the regular thinner might be your best alternative, although it will probably clog up your nozzle more quickly.

One alternative you could try out is isopropyl alcohol, or isopropanol, which you can buy in hardware stores, although the regulations for isopropanol appears to vary from one country to another. In Norway, the most common brand is dyed blue (for some reason), but the blue dye starts to fade and eventually become clear once the seal is broken. I use the faded isopropanol as a backup and it works well as a thinner.

The airbrush-thinner from Tamiya is mostly isopropanol, but with other beneficial chemicals mixed in.

It'll probably work. I'm not sure if Vallejo's thinner is any different to their airbrush thinner but in general airbrush thinners are more likely to have drying retarders, surfactants and stronger solvents to reduce tip dry and clogs by keeping the paint flowing better.

But there are some crazies out there that just thin with water, so I'm sure you can get something acceptable with damned near any thinner as long as it's compatible.

 Zingraff wrote:
I'd say it's worth a try, the regular thinner might be your best alternative, although it will probably clog up your nozzle more quickly.

One alternative you could try out is isopropyl alcohol, or isopropanol, which you can buy in hardware stores, although the regulations for isopropanol appears to vary from one country to another. In Norway, the most common brand is dyed blue (for some reason), but the blue dye starts to fade and eventually become clear once the seal is broken. I use the faded isopropanol as a backup and it works well as a thinner.

The airbrush-thinner from Tamiya is mostly isopropanol, but with other beneficial chemicals mixed in.

In my experience alcohol isn't a great thinner for Vallejo/Citadel paints, it works well for Tamiya paints because Tamiya paints are alcohol based to begin with, but I think something in Vallejo paints goes a bit rubbery/claggy when it is mixed with alcohol and doesn't spray as nicely.

That's just my experience, I haven't spent a lot of time testing, I just remember trying alcohol to thin my Vallejo once and finding it didn't work as well as I'd hoped so didn't bother experimenting further.

I also found it wasn't as good for cleaning out the airbrush, the dried paint seemed to come off in chunks rather than dissolving nicely.

I have used Humbrol thinner for Vallejo before, it worked okay, but has a lot of drying retarder so you have to keep that in mind when you spray it. Humbrol acrylics have a tendency to dry grainy, so the Humbrol thinner seems to be purpose made for Humbrol paints.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
In my experience alcohol isn't a great thinner for Vallejo/Citadel paints, it works well for Tamiya paints because Tamiya paints are alcohol based to begin with, but I think something in Vallejo paints goes a bit rubbery/claggy when it is mixed with alcohol and doesn't spray as nicely.

That's just my experience, I haven't spent a lot of time testing, I just remember trying alcohol to thin my Vallejo once and finding it didn't work as well as I'd hoped so didn't bother experimenting further.

I also found it wasn't as good for cleaning out the airbrush, the dried paint seemed to come off in chunks rather than dissolving nicely.

I have used Humbrol thinner for Vallejo before, it worked okay, but has a lot of drying retarder so you have to keep that in mind when you spray it. Humbrol acrylics have a tendency to dry grainy, so the Humbrol thinner seems to be purpose made for Humbrol paints.

I believe you are correct, and before I moved, I was planning to replace my Tamiya thinners with those from Vallejo, since I mostly painted with Vallejo anyway. I haven't yet had a chance to try out the vallejo thinner, but my frustrations with my airbrush nozzle clogging up is probably at least partially explained by the isopropanol affecting the viscosity of the paint. However the results, were pretty good. I mostly started with Tamiya due to availability and because Forge World recommends that thinner in their Model Masterclass books. I suppose they would have made different recommendations had these books been written today.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I also found it wasn't as good for cleaning out the airbrush, the dried paint seemed to come off in chunks rather than dissolving nicely.

I have used Humbrol thinner for Vallejo before, it worked okay, but has a lot of drying retarder so you have to keep that in mind when you spray it. Humbrol acrylics have a tendency to dry grainy, so the Humbrol thinner seems to be purpose made for Humbrol paints.

What would you btw recommend then cleaning out the airbrush? Paint drying where I can't see/physically touch is one of my big worries with the airbrush.

It's not the cheapest option in the world, but I use Vallejo's cleaner. Some other companies make cleaners but I haven't tried them. Vallejo stuff used to be really hard to get locally (hence why I've tested Vallejo + Humbrol thinner) but since a local store started carrying it, it's the easiest stuff to get.

I use water to dump out the excess paint (don't spray it through, just jump it out) then use a tissue to wipe the excess out of the cup, then I run some Vallejo cleaner through it a few times until it sprays clear, pull it apart, wipe down the needle with a tissue soaked in Vallejo cleaner, use a pipe cleaner to clean out the passage between the nozzle and the paint cup, clean out the nozzle itself, reassemble and spray a bit more of the Vallejo cleaner through just to flush out anything that got loosened up by the pipe cleaner.

If I'm spraying Tamiya or Gunze, I use Gunze's thinner to clean out the brush following a similar method. If I'm using enamels then I use the correct branded enamel thinner for thinning (Testors for Testors paints, Humbrol for Humbrol paints, etc) but for cleaning I use hardware store enamel thinner which is dirt cheap.

I also use Vallejo's cleaner. Mostly the same routine as AllSeeingSkink. But I also let my nozzle soak in cleaner between sessions. So at the beginning of a new session, I first clean the nozzle with a needle (and I often remove some gunk, even if I didn't have any spraying issues in the previous session).
Just be very careful when screwing the nozzle back in. I destroyed a couple before realizing than hand tight + a quarter turn with the wrench was plenty enough.

Okay so about same as me. Good to know. So alcohol soaking(after above procedure) here and there is at best useless, at worst bad?

Nah alcohol works, certainly better than just using water, plenty of people use alcohol to clean. It's just the paint tends to come off in gooey clumps rather than dissolve nicely and in general it takes a lot more alcohol than it takes a good cleaner to get the paint off. So I found it takes more effort to clean my AB with alcohol vs Vallejo cleaner.

I think Vallejo cleaner also tends to be a bit softer on the AB seals, though I don't have any quantitative evidence for that, it just feels like it's not drying stuff out quite so bad.

I cleaned my AB with alcohol for a while and don't recall any having any problems, it's just when swapping to Vallejo cleaner it made the whole process a lot easier. I have heard people complain that alcohol turns Vallejo paint to jelly.... but those people were scale modellers who normally spray enamels so I think they were just exaggerating (if you ever spray enamels, clean up is soooo easy because the enamel thinner just cuts through the partially dried paint like it was nothing, the downside being the hideous fumes and painfully slow cure times).



When it comes to airbrushing there's a lot of things that might "work" but some just work better or worse than others and some of it's down to personal preference.