White spirit vs Cellulose

Your all gonna love this...

For airbrushing and hand brushing my preference has always been whitespirit for thinning and cleaning. i find it great and it does its job well! At the club iv been told to ditch W.S and use cellulose. but i have tried cellulose in the past as a brush modeller and 1) i hate the smell 2) i found its too strong.When put on bare plastic neat, the plastic slightly melted and when mixed with paint and put over well cured paint, the dried paint crinkled. so i never used it again...

WHY is cellulose preferred?? do you tihnk i should use W.S for thinning and cellulose just for cleaninig the A.B?

For airbrushing ONLY.....

Dottore

Dottore wrote:For airbrushing ONLY.....

Dottore

But WHY cellulose?

Did you try it?
Paint mixes much better and sprays better too.....It 'bites' into the surface better too...
Not for brush painting though!

Dottore

Adrian, cellulose thinner is a definite NO for brush painting. I have been using it forever with the airbrush and never had any problems unless the paint is defective. there were times when i got crinckled paint as you mentioned but i had either thinned it too much or applied it too heavy. If you spray normally, you should not have any problems. The smell is not nice i admit but that is the only downside to it. Before changing the colour, i normally seal in the first coat with some gloss varnish. That protects the first colour and gives you some allowance for error.

Be aware that there is also cleaning thinner which is stronger for obvious reasons and can react differently on paint.
Try thinner for hardner paint which is smoother and has low odour .WS is not suitable for spraying as it takes time to dry and as such it will run and dust particles will stick to the model until it dries apart that it is not strong enough to withstand further coats without dissolving

Thankyou for the advice! ill try out cellulose thinner. Ill leave WS for hand brushing.
Is Cellulose suitable for cleaning the AB afterwords??

Ooh & ive never had he problem of WS taking long to dry (unless its glossy) and dissolving :S

cellulose thinner is much more suited for airbrushing than w.s. it is also a good cleaning agent for airbrushes but the best solution for airbrush cleaning are 1st sprayaway (badger), 2nd carbureter cleaner spray from autoparts and 3rd acetone, always be careful not to leave any rubber or plastic washers in airbrush if you leave in acetone or thinner. all three should be used in well ventilated places especially the carb cleaner and sprayaway as both contain carbon tretrachloride

I usually use white spirit to thin down paints and use cellulose basically as cleaner. Cellulose is definitly out of the question when brush painting as it will lift the previous coat. The only time when I use cellulose to thin paints is when using humbrol, otherwise white spirit with modelmaster. The system I use when thinning may reduce the paint shelf life but I found that the finish and texture of the product is much better - that is, I remove the oil in the paint jar (most of it) and replace it with White spirit, but as I said shelf life is reduced once mixed. (for airbrushing)

J.Fenech wrote:I usually use white spirit to thin down paints and use cellulose basically as cleaner. Cellulose is definitly out of the question when brush painting as it will lift the previous coat. The only time when I use cellulose to thin paints is when using humbrol, otherwise white spirit with modelmaster. The system I use when thinning may reduce the paint shelf life but I found that the finish and texture of the product is much better - that is, I remove the oil in the paint jar (most of it) and replace it with White spirit, but as I said shelf life is reduced once mixed. (for airbrushing)

Hi I do agree with you guys thinner is much better than white spirit assuming 1 is using enamels me as a rule I tend to mix paints with their own brand of thinners but obviously in MALTA brand thinners are not easy to get hold off so thinner is the alternative mixing medium regards Joe