As noted above, use distilled water or Windex (if you have that over there).
I know that it’s water based paint but I also know that alcohol should mix with it. I can’t understand why it does not mix.
Maybe the alchohol is breaking the paint down instead of just thinning it.I use just ordinary tap water with good results.Good luck!
I’ve never had good luck mixing Polly Scale paint and alcohol. Water works great.
First, a little info to chew on …
Generally speaking, all paint is made up of three components: a pigment, a vehicle, and a solvent.
Pigment is the material that gives paint its color. Pigments can be organic or chemical, but pigments have nothing to do with how the paint is classified.
A paint vehicle is material that bonds to pigment and remains on the surface once the paint dries. The vehicle is what gives paint its protective properties.
A solvent is any liquid that dissolves the vehicle to make paint liquid in the bottle or can. Note that a solvent does not have to be a chemical. Water is a solvent if it dissolves the vehicle in a given paint.
Enamel paint is one that both dries and cures once applied to a surface. As the solvent evaporates, the vehicle undergoes a chemical reaction making it harder and less soluble than the liquid paint. This is why you typically can’t remove fully cured enamel with the same solvent as in the original paint.
Lacquer only dries it does not cure. The solvent evaporates with no chemical reaction. This is why water- based lacquers can be dissolved with water long after the paint has dried. This is also why applying multiple layers of lacquer can result in the underlying layers dissolving.
“Acrylic” refers to the vehicle used in paint and not with how the paint reacts once it is applied. The vehicle in acrylic paint is a form of plastic and there are both “acrylic enamels” and “acrylic lacquers”. There are also both petroleum-based and water-based solvents for each of these acrylics, depending on the vehicle formulation.
For years, modelers, hobby shop owners, and even “experts”, have referred to modeling paints as either enamel/ lacquer (meaning that the paint uses a chemical solvent) or acrylic (meaning that water is the solvent). This is just plain wrong and only adds to the confusion. Try adding water to a petroleum-based acr
Mark,
I understand that you know a lot about this but…
How do you explain that a friend of mine mix alcohol with Polly Scale with great success? There are also lots of places on the net where I can read about it. I know that this is a water based paint that should be thinned with water. But the question is, why can other people mix it with alcohol but not me?
What kind of alchohol does HE use - there are MANY variations of what we generically call alchohol. A lot of alchohols contain a large percentage of aqueous substrates which may be sufficient to break down the vehicle carrier.
Mark.
So you mean that Isopropyl alcohol is not the same all over the world?
Did you try it with another color? Maybe you got a bad bottle. (it happens) Try 50/50 alcohol/water mix. I never had much luck with alcohol washes. (paint or ink)
That’s right. There’s 90%, 70% and 50% available at the Wal-Mart here.
My recommendation would be to thin the Polly Scale paint with water and then add a percentage of achohol as a drying agent. The alchohol will also help the mix to flow better. As mentioned before, in this particular application, water is the solvent for the vehicle. Alchohol ( the kind YOU are using ) won’t dissolve the vehicle … however, water and alchohol ARE miscible with EACH OTHER. It’s all in the chemical make-up / mixture of the individual components.
Mark.
I would also add that some of the alky on the store shelf may not be Isopropyl alcohol at all, but, denatured ethanol - and the denaturing agent may be any number of other chemicals that could include things like methanol, ethyl acetate, or butal alcohal. The specific denatureing agents are probably only known to the manufacture and BATF.
If you want almost pure Isopropanol, try IsoHeet found in the automotive section - more than 98% pure - regular Heet is almost pure methanol.
Did you know that the original poster can edit the title of a thread after it’s been running a while? All you have to do is go back to the original post and then you can edit both that post and the title.
For example, Slim Pickins, in “Dr. Strangelove,” said “What in the name of blue blazes is goin’ on here?” Not only was profanity not used or implied, but the line was much more memorable that way.
Here’s the answer I like.
From the OP:
“I mixed half a bottle with alcohol and 5 drops of reefer white. But they will not mix.”
Agreed.
Water is the thinner. Alcohol is the wetting agent. It lowers water’s surface tension so it doesn’t bead up the way you’ve seen it do, EL.
Start with a small amount of Polyscale. Add water to get the transparency you wish. Add a small amount of alcohol, test the mixture it on styrene for beading and surface tension, add more if necessary.
If you use an eyedropper, or titration column, for small amounts, or a measuring cup/graduated cylinder for larger quantities, you will quickly find a good range of percentages for what you want to do and avoid the trial and error next time.
The thinner shouldn’t be more than a 10-15% (70%) iso alcohol with 85-90% water mix. The alcohol is just there as a wetting agent, the water is the thinner.
Try thinning with just water and then adding just a few drops of the alcohol. The Windex (window cleaner) works too.
If the paint won’t mix with the water, then you’ve got a bad bottle of paint. I have seen this with PolyScale as well.
And please do edit your subject title before Bergie deletes this thread altogether.
Poly scale also makes a full line of thinning agents for their paints, I would suggest going after their brand before experimenting. While it can be cheaper to go with generic products, best results are achieved with the manufacturers own products. I have been painting HO scale cars, engines, and buildings since I was 14 and trust me, using non manufacturer recomended products will at some point give u less than satisfactory results.
Much obliged, pardner…
70% Isopropyl Alcohol will mix fine with PolyScale Acrylics, so will water.
On the other hand, Model Master acrylic paint will not mix with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol.
Testors 1/2 and 1/4 oz. acrylics will mix with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol.
I say 70% Isopropyl Alcohol, because it won’t attack the surface of most pre-painted models, where higher percentages will. If you don’t believe me just try a 99% alcohol wash on a Branchline car, preferably one you want to repaint.
Testors is the manufacturer of all three of these and sells a thinner which will mix with all three of these acrylics. It smells petroleum based and costs $6.29 for 4oz.
So, you can do small tests before you ruin a few drops of paint and alcohol, or spend the $$$.
Electrolove,
Washes may be fine for certain phases of you’re weathering, but I notice that on the black hoppers that the white lettering is still too pronounced. Coal hoppers after a short time in service will be covered with coal dust, road grime and the caustic nature of the loads will cause minor corrosion and streaking of the paint and lettering. I may not weather anything as good as some others here (Aggro for example), but I find that initial dry brushing of weathered streaks and washes of rust at the ribs and gussets first is a good start. Then I’ll air brush a black hopper with a thinned weathered black to fade the black and knock down the bright lettering. Additional coats of the thinned paint can vary the appearance of different hoppers. If you want at this point additional streaking, especially vertical through the lettering can be done. Give the car another light coat when you spray another set of hoppers. Once you’re satisfied with the results the trucks and underbody can be airbrushed with the appropriate color of road grime for you’re locale. The B&O/ Chessie and WM ran much of their caol drags throgh areas with some serious red clay so I tend to hit the trucks and ends w/ rust/ roof brown mix. By setting the car up on a 2x4 block I can shoot straight on or even up at an angle from below the hopper. I find that you need to careful as not to weather all the cars the same. Vary the technique and colors of the washes and drybrushing. Prototype pics of these coal drags is a must if you would like to weather like the real thing. On occasion, I will toss in a heavily weathered/ rusted hopper (usually an older run still in use), and try to add the scaling heavy rust of adding Bragdon chaulk to the still wet rust paint. Maybe Aggro or others can give you a link to these great methods. Their weathering is fantastic. Sorry I don’t have any close up pics of the hoppers.