How to paint with the best results possible?

[doctorwayne]

Deano, Todd tried PolyScale with water for thinner and told me it came out in splotches. I don't know if he tried alcohol (for thinner) or not. I know if I messed up a batch of ho paint jobs I would probably use a lot of alcohol.

Charlie, it sounds to me like the paint wasnt mixed well, or perhaps Todd had some semi-hard chunks in it. :?:

I am a big advocate on cutting Polly Scale with Isopropyl Alcohol , on the other hand, our good friend Wayne swears by the use of water to cut it, i have done both with GREAT success , but i really prefer the isopropyl alcohol because of the speed in the drying process .

I do use distilled water to thin PollyScale paint, but that's for brush painting. I only spray water-based paints if there's no alternative, as I'm not impressed with their properties when sprayed by someone with my limited capabilities: the paint goes on too heavily for my tastes, although that is mostly due to my inexperience using it. For spraying, I thin it with methyl hydrate. I've found, oddly enough, that lowering the pressure when spraying PollyScale results in less clogging, but it certainly doesn't eliminate it. Most of the GERN works and the main train station in Dunnville was painted with airbrushed PollyScale, mainly because they were too big to fit into my spray booth - using Floquil would have stunk-up the whole house even more than usual. I have to admit, while I like the things that can be done with paint, painting is not one of my favourite hobby tasks.
I find that I have much better control using lacquer-based paints, but I've been using them for a long time and it's difficult to adjust for a different medium. I also find clean-up with water-based paints a real mess - I don't have a tap or sink handy, and water sprayed through the airbrush simply lays in the spray booth - at least the lacquer thinner has the decency to evaporate and get drawn away by the exhaust fan.

Wayne