Use of cheap craft store acrylic paints in an airbrush?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am new to the use of an airbrush. I have owned one for several months, but only plucked up the courage to use it for the first time last night!

I am starting off by painting and weathering some structures. It seems that the innexpensive (less than a buck each) bottles of creamy acrylic paint sold by Michaels and Hobby Lobby would be a good inexpensive source of structure paints. Of course they are too thick right out of the bottle. If anyone more experienced than me uses these, I would like to get some advice on thinning and application with an airbrush.

Is water the best to thin these with? What sort of ratio?

Thanks

2

From what I’ve been told in the past, don’t use that paint for large portions of structures. So you wouldn’t want to use that paint to spray all of your brick walls (but the inside would be ok). I’ve heard that it’s ok to use for weathering and smaller details however. In personal experience, I’ve tried to use that paint on large areas and it just peals right off. Even though I made sure to wa***he pieces carefully. Any type of water (decals) or rubbing, takes that paint right off.

Please note, I’ve never tried it with airbrushing, but I would suspect that the results would be similar.