I struggled all day to get Life Color to spray well. I noticed it was thin when I opened a new bottle of olive green. I mixed it 80 paint 20 LifeColor thinner. I have an Iwata Hi line C and use a CO2 cylinder. The paint started very thin and spidered so I backed down on the pressure. The paint dried so thin it took 3 coats to cover the lower hull. When I started the road wheels the airbrush started clogging and would not spray any paint. I worked the trigger back an forth and it would stop and start. I figured something must have gotten in the paint so I dumped the bowl out and thoroughly cleaned the air brush. I ran lacquer thinner through it, used the Iwata cleaning kit and ultrasoniced the airbrush using Windex. I cleaned everything up with distilled water and tried painting again with less thinner. I had the same results as before. I was also getting some spatter from excess paint on the tip. I worked most of the day trying to paint the tank. I tried 2 different paint bottles. The second bottle started fine but started missbehaving again before I could finish the hull top.

So I like the actual colors but am hating the paint at this point. I have some of my parts sitting in an alcohol bath to strip the paint. P.S. Don't try to use lacquer thinner to strip the paint.

Suggestions? Ha ha, I heard you say change brands. No I want to solve the problem... whatever it is.

I also will have to brush a hard edge camo scheme and the plan was to brush the edges and spray the field. Will this brand's paint cooperate?

Hi Greg'
Myself I have never had any luck at all with life colour re drying in the airbrush, a guy in my club thins it at a 200-1 ratio thinner to paint & has good results.

I am yet to try his method, but require a few thin coats.

Mike

Life Color is water based acrylic, I think, so similar to Vallejo Model Air and loads of other lines that also tend to suffer from the paint drying on the nozzle problem. So have you tried adding acrylic retarder to it?

Hi Greg, that shouldn't be problem. Does a better job in my opinion than may others touted as being perfect for what you suggest. I would suggest however, thinning it down a wee-bit for brush application so that you can minimise the risk of brush strokes.

In an airbrush the stuff is crap. However for brush painting details and figures I love it. Horses for courses.

I airbrushed this with Life Color paints, used their thinner and Vallejo retarder.

Lifecolour paints really need a lot less thinning than we are used to and since their thinner does not evaporate fast, you are making things harder for yourself that way. It can tip dry but the intermittent blockage is probably down to dried paint making it to the AB or you mixing paint and thinner in the cup. Try doing it in a disposable plastic "shot glass" for better results. Also not all paints like all thinners so clean your AB only with propper thinners/cleaners for the type of paint you are using. I had funky reactions to alcohol and other brand thinners actually helping make deposits of dried paint.

Bernard, looks great... I see you say you used retarder.

Remember, everyone (not Bernard obvs ) and in relation to what Milos said about it being thin already, that adding more thinner will most likely not cure the drying on the tip problem, it just makes the paint thin and therefore require more coats. Retarder is what makes it take longer to set and therefore prevents the clogging / drying in the a/b nozzle. You don't need special brand specific retarder, just some acrylic retarder from an art shop, like Liquitex, Winsor and Newton etc. Add about 10-30% but no more otherwise the paint may just not dry properly at all.

I think trying to cure the problem by overthinning the paint instead of using retarder is a source of massive and repeated frustration. How do I know that?


Agree also with what Milos said about avoiding mixing the wrong kind of cleaners with the wrong paints. I have seen lacquer thinner (cellulose) create some gunky mess when introduced to water based acrylics. Try to keep them separate and allow things to dry out if swapping from one to the other.

Thanks. I used 2 drops of Goldens retarded to the bowl. Maybe I could double that, pour the paint through some panty hose and use 5 percent Life Color thinner. I noticed that Windex didn't dissolve the paint in the airbrush. It just caused it to come off the metal in sections.

Bernard, Is that the "Blue Devil" destroyer? It looks great.

I have quite a few lifecolor paints and have had no issues spraying them.
I only use a little bit of lifecolors thinner, and add up to about 30% artists acrylic flow medium depending on how transparent I want the colour to be.

This is the stuff I use

It's basically acrylic binder with no pigments, so you don't lose paint adhesion like you would if you over thin paint. I have used it most recently on two spitfire and a boomerang model and had zero issues with paint drying on the airbrush tip.

It's also good for turning paints into transparent glazes/washes if you add more than about 50-60% flow medium, and it's boat loads cheaper than any of the model paint brand mediums.

The medium is also compatible with other acrylics including Tamiya.

Hi Greg,

You have received some excellent replies. I will tell you my experience with airbrushing Life Color for reviews.

Airbrushing
Lifecolor instructs that for airbrushing, use low pressure. Not surprising they also recommend using their own thinner but state water will suffice. I sprayed them with my Aztec airbrush with a acrylic general purpose (black) nozzle. Air was supplied from both my 35 year-old Thomas diaphragm compressor (no excess pressure here!), as well as a reservoir with a regulator from which I used 12-15 psi. Each paint was shot straight from the bottle onto a smooth unprimed white card sample swatch. Each swatch is glossed with on the left side.

The airbrushed coverage was excellent. All six paints covered with complete opacity. None of the colors ran nor puddled. The paint dries to a flat luster. I tried to 'stretch' the paint by cutting it with both water and with Lifecolor's own thinner. Both worked to my satisfaction and regardless of which was used, the thinned paint continued to cover well.

https://archive.kitmaker.net/review/9314

Lifecolor instructs that for airbrushing, use low pressure. Not surprisingly they also recommend using their own thinner but water will suffice. I sprayed them with my Aztec airbrush with a acrylic general purpose (black) nozzle. Pressure was from my 35 year-old Thomas diaphragm compressor (no excess pressure here!). Each paint was shot straight from the bottle onto plastic railroad car over DSB Epoke III colors. A single pass was made with each stroke.

The coverage was excellent. All six paints covered with complete opacity. None of the colors ran nor puddled.

https://archive.kitmaker.net/review/4886

Inthis review, 3 colors worked great, 3 were troublesome: https://archive.kitmaker.net/review/10231

Hope this helps.

I was at an Iwata airbrush seminar recently and a subject much like this one came up. The expert advice was not to mix different brands, not to assume that a cleaner or retarder or thin ratio that works with Brand A will work with Brand B, not to just throw any old thing into your airbrush expecting it to work this time because it worked with that other paint you used last month.

This is a strong argument in favor of finding one brand you like and sticking with what works with that brand. Yeah, fat chance. So long as we use half a dozen different brands, we need to be aware that not everything is compatible. Somebody, somewhere, sometime will publish a chart showing in detail what works with what brand of paint, someday. Until then we'll spend a lot of time cleaning our brushes and using inventive combinations of curses in various languages when we get results like this. It isn't necessarily the paint, it's everything else we do that results in the swearing and gnashing of teeth.

I found that Lifecolor works great with the Ultimate thinner (also Vallejo by the way), at least from my experience, yours may vary
I have several bottles nearly 7-8 years old and have no problem spraying them. My two cents

quote for
ump thinner and lifecolor but i ad a drop of retarder

Also had this exact issue. Though I haven’t tried a lot of guys in the UK how have experience with Hannants Xtra acrilic advice thinning with iwata/valayo airbrush cleaner. For TC most advise v-low pressure and top up the jar to the top when opening a new pot. Replace the top the shack / mix in for 30min

As for the howl this preshure forget that and listion to the airbrush and adjust you pressure to suit that way you are at the correct preshure for what the paint likes

I like Lifecolor ,one of the best to brush paint.
Vallejo is different on spraying , and requires a flow extender added.
I have AB lifecolor using water ,never had a problem ,and high pressure.But many years back,mostly use Tamiya and Gunze.
Ever try Gunze Mr Color Leveling thinner?

I haven't given up yet. I hand painted the hard edges of a late war camo pattern. The redbrown took 2 coats and the olive green took 5 coats. I sprayed the field in red brown and it took 2 coats and sprayed OK. The olive green was behaving differently. It was thinner and spattered but I got it done. I did strain both colors, added a retarderbut no thinner and used low pressure. The next challenge is to prevent paint build up that causes a spatter as soon as you start spraying again.