Washes with oils

I believe folks use turpentine or paint thinner. While I don't use oils, I make my washes from enamels using the same thinner. One has to wait for the enamel to be thoroughly dry/hardened before turpentine washes, but as long as you do not touch or brush wet areas an enamel finish stands up to the washes okay. The turpentine dries pretty fast.

NO! Turpentine or paint thinner strip enamels or lacquer paint!

The thinner of choice is mineral spirits which works fine. You can also add a drying accelerator (ask at an art store - both Grumbacher and Windsor & Newton offer them) to speed up drying.

As a rule you don't have to coat the model with Future first if you simply coat it with a broad brush and don't scrub the surface.

Cookie Sewell

mando wrote: : : What exactly is used to thin oils for washes? : Paint thinner is popular here. Purchase a large tin of it at your big box store, cheaper is better. : : Does the model need to : be coated with future if using an oil wash? : Future? No. Pledge with Future Shine? Yes. Okay, no. Does it need a gloss finish? Yes. You want the wash to capillary about, and a gloss surface will do that the best. A flat finish will do that the worst. : : Or is it safe over an : enamel? : You want to apply a surface that the thinner will NOT attack. So, I would strongly suggest that you NOT use emamel or lacquer gloss finishes. Can it be done? Sure.

Another reason for the gloss surface is to make cleaning up an "oops" easier. If, for example, your wash goes somewhere/does something you do not like, it is trivial to clean it up IF, AND ONLY IF, it has not softened the underlying surface. If the wash thinner has already softened the underlying paint layer, and you wipe up some of the offending wash with a rag/towel/etc, what happens to the underlying paint surface? Yep, you got a problem.

And using gloss makes it easier to clean up an "oops" because well, it is smooth, so there is less "tooth" for the wash and thinner to bite (which also helps with the capillary action above).

Since I also filter my models, (ie, using small dots of compli- mentary colors plus white, grey and black) on a moistened surface, with a large, flat brush to drag the oil dots down (or following the flow of a fluid over a surface), then coming back with a clean, dry brush, to soften the final effect), a gloss finish is the perfect surface to do this on, since you want (generally) a very subtle effect. A flat surface, again, provides too much "tooth" and does not provide a subtle effect.

When you are ready to seal the wash, again use a water based (assuming you used an oil wash) gloss/flat/satin, etc - you don't want the carrier to lift the wash if you get slightly heavy handed, right?

If you want, you can also use water colors as your washes. You just reverse the underlying surfaces for the same reasons.

Bruce

Only if you soak it in the thinner for some period. A wash dries quite fast. It will SOFTEN paint, which is why I say do not touch or brush the wet area. I have been using paint thinner washes on enamels for about forty years.

BTW, isn't mineral spirits the same as turpentine or paint thinner? I thought it meant a distillation of petroleum (mineral oil) with a certain range of boiling points (distillation).

Bruce and others,

Been following this thread as the appropriate / recommended sequence of finishing steps has not been all that clear to me.

Following is what I understand after reading several articles on subject - interested in any comments as to whether these are the preferred / recommended steps to take:

1. Prime - apply thin coats of a quick drying product such as Krylon (lacquer based), or use Tamiya fine surface primer to preserve detail.

1. Pre-shade (?)

2. Apply base color. Have been using the Testors Model Master enamels for the appropriate colors.

1. Apply filter(s): typically 10% oil paint and 90% thinner; lightly sprayed.

2. Washes - pin or overall: have successfully used turpentine (W&N English distilled).

1. Apply pigments.

As a satin finish is recommenced for filters - apply a clear satin finish over the enamel base coat before the filter(s).

As a gloss finish is recommended for washes - apply a clear gloss finish over the filter(s), if used or over the base coat before the wash.

As a flat / matt surface is recommended for pigments, apply a clear flat finish over the wash.

Again using the Testor's clears - they are all lacquer based. Understand lacquer can be successfully applied over a fully cured enamel base coat if done in several light applications.

This is a lot of different layers of coatings i.e., lacquer prime, enamel base coat, lacquer satin, lacquer gloss, lacquer flat.

Is there a more efficient way to achieve the desired results?

What is recommended for applying after the pigments to ensure they are retained on the surface?

Thanks in advance for any and all comments / suggestions.

Regards,

Doug

snipped-for-privacy@realtime.net (Bruce Burden) wrote:

Turpentine is distilled from pine-tree resin.

The rest of the world calls mineral spirits "white spirit" . It is derived from paraffin, and is therefore a petroleum product. It is also called "turps substitute", as it can be used instead of turpentine with artists paints.

Paint thinner is whatever the paint manufacturer used as the vehicle for the pigment. Lacquer thinner is different to any of the enamel thinners and both are different to acrylic thinners.

Douglas R. Hortvet, Jr. wrote: : : 4. Apply filter(s): typically 10% oil paint and 90% thinner; lightly sprayed. : Hmmm. I don't spray the filter.

1) Apply Polly Scale gloss finish 2) Once completely cured (ie, a week?), I moisten the surface with my thinner of choice (paint thinner) 3) I apply very small "dots" of straight oil paint to the surface, using complimentary colors, as well as blac, white, gray. 4) Using a clean, flat, moistened brush, drag the dots in the direction of the fluid flow (down, back, etc). 5) Clean the brush, and now lightly drag the surface again, in the same direction. Don't go too subtle here, or you will lose the effect under the final coats. 6) Seal with Polly Scale gloss finish for pin washes, etc. : : 6. Apply pigments. : As in chalks? I generally do not do much with chalks/pastels, as you lose most of the effect under a sealer coat, and you have to be very, very careful if it is unsealed not to smudge the pastels. : : As a satin finish is recommenced for filters - apply a clear satin finish over : the enamel base coat before the filter(s). : Hmmm, I just go for the gloss. :-) : : As a flat / matt surface is recommended for pigments, apply a clear flat : finish over the wash. : As long as you mean chalk pastels, sure - you want as much "tooth" as you can get for the chalk to settle into. : : Again using the Testor's clears - they are all lacquer based. Understand : lacquer can be successfully applied over a fully cured enamel base coat if : done in several light applications. : I do not like using Testors GlossCote, but many people do so w/out a problem. I prefer Polly Scale, if I am going to apply a gloss coat, for reasons already stated. : : This is a lot of different layers of coatings i.e., lacquer prime, enamel base coat, : lacquer satin, lacquer gloss, lacquer flat. : You can always skip the primer coat. I don't, because I feel it gives a homogenous surface under your color coat(s). It also tells me right away if I need to do more to address filled areas or deal with "flow marks", where the plastic filled the mold cavity, and not always smoothly.

Nor do I use enamals - they take too long do dry. "Is it dry yet?" pokes the object, leaves thumbprint in the tacky paint. "Dammit!". That is why I use acrylic, mostly Polly Scale. Once dry, it really does not care what you do to it.

As for satin/gloss/flat, I'd go with a gloss, but only in the areas that I am applying decals (Pledge with Future Shine works very well for this, as I can brush it on!) (what a completely stupid name, J&J!) then I will gloss for the filtering.

Whether I seal the filtering before washing depends on how brave I feel. You can certainly pin wash over the filtered surface. Just realize that any screw up can lead to a distrubance in the filter. Or, I have used acrylics/water colors to do the wash. Just be careful to be very light on the sealing coat so you don't disturb the acrylic/water color wash with an acrylic flat coat like Polly Scale... : : What is recommended for applying after the pigments to ensure they are : retained on the surface? : Again, generally, none, as you will lose most of the effect. I don't know of too many local club members who use pastels for that reason.

But, I have heard of people using hairspray, flat, etc.

Bruce

Whoops, that is right! Turpentine is a vegetable oil!

Yep, I agree with that now. I have noticed now that buying "paint thinner" at a hardware store I come home with something much different than I used to. It is not clear! That makes it harder to use for thinning.

Actually, when I use hobby enamels, I thin with Testors thinner. It may be more expensive than stuff from hardware store, but I buy it in half-pint cans, and it is not too bad. I have found that while hardware store thinners WILL work, they do not work as well as the Testors stuff.

I DO, however, use the storebought stuff for cleanup. I use a lot of thinner for cleanup, especially of my airbrush, so could not afford to use the Testors stuff for that.

Generic paint thinner is risky for use with specialist hobby enamels. Sometimes it reacts badly with the actual paint solvent in the tinlet.

I had a bad experience with Revell enamels which I thinned down with white spirit in order to airbrush. It wouldn't dry! After several days, it was still sticky, couldn't be touched or decalled over.

It isn't always easy to find out what has been used as the solvent. Eventually I found this quote: "Revell Airbrush Enamel Color" is a paint system on a solvent base that has been specially developed for model-building requirements. Perfect painting and natural-looking camouflage are no longer a problem with this synthetic resin paint."

The key words being "synthetic resin paint". Synthetic resins use different solvents to traditional enamels.

After my Revell enamel experience I decided to use the specific manufacturer's thinner whenever diluting paints for application, by brush or airbrush. I have a nice collection of bottles and cans. It is worth noting, though, that Hannants Xtracolour is designed to the thinned with white spirit, and it says so on the tin.

I too still use white spirit for cleanup of brushes and the Badger once I'm finished. Brushed get finished off with soap and water once they're clean, to wash out the remains of the white spirit and keep the brush soft and delay losing its shape. Hmmm, maybe shampoo would be better?

Paint passages in the airbrush and nozzle usually get a blast of xylene-based airbrush cleaner to finish with, making sure there are no residues.

But you don't want to be puttin' it on salads. :-)