Testing Tamiya's Enamel Paints For Airbrush & Brushing' - How To Thin Them For Airbrushing 

it would be pretty interesting to see a durability test for all the paint types from cheap acrylic to enamel

Thank you ! New to Tamiya enamel and the 1:1 ratio worked absolutely perfectly out of my Iwata Neo airbrush... MIGHT possibly need to thin a tiny bit more to spray from the H&S Evolution 24 with its smaller needle. Pressure on 20 like you said perfect and distance as suggested perfect. Very feint coverage (needing those multiple passes as demonstrated) which makes for beautiful finished product !

Dude I am just blown away by the way you are just so great at teaching and generous with your knowledge of what works and how to make it work out for the masses. You are very awesome for your content and I would go as far to say one of the best for making it look so much more fun to advance in the hobby. Keep making it look so easy gonna start calling you Barbatos Ross

I used testors almost exclusively for the first 30 years of modelling. Started with no paint at all in 1969. I was getting frustrated because I was seven but my dad came home from work at Grumman aerospace and taught me, in that single afternoon, how to be Patient. What an important lesson. Still building at 60. First car I can remember was a richard petty Nascar. Switched to drag raving for 25 years now endurance and F1 are my favorite builds. I Never build military models, even the ones my dad contributed to, like F 14s and E2c Hawkeyes, as well as A6 intruders, bir I've collected the kits. I will build the lunar excursion models as that was a peaceful endeavor

I had no clue Tamiya had enamel paints! After the Rustoleum buy out, I'm done with Testors. If I get the urge to go enamel - I'll be reaching out to Poland! Thanks Robert!

For anyone that wants to know because I did, these enamel paints also stick well on clear topcoats as primer. Specifically the premium water based topcoats from Mr Hobby, I tested them on plastic spoons and they are not coming off.

Greetings from Taiwan, a neat little trick is using zippo for clearing and wiping off excess panel lining/washes, as the x20 dry quite slow and tends to damage plastics. Overall I love the tamiya enamels for small area, weathering, or washes

I would like to see a video on how to maintain and clean a airbrush in depth, especially after using enamels

Totalmente de acuerdo contigo; hace unos meses compré en línea por error algunas enamel en vez de acrílicas, es lo único que puedo criticarle a tamiya porque la nomenclatura es la misma "xf..", pero la calidad de estas enamel es sobresaliente tanto en aerógrafo como con pincel, que es por lo que suelen destacar las enamel. Las rebajo perfectamente con el mismo thinner que uso para las "acrílicas" de model hobby y tamiya, un equivalente al leveling thinner pero de sherwin williams que consigo localmente a precios ridículos. Un error afortunado porque ahora las tendré junto a las acrílicas con la seguridad que son pinturas magníficas. Gracias por el video.

I use mr.color leveling thinner for all Enamel paints have been doing that for years it's the best dry squicker I don't use nothing but Mr.color leveling thinner

In my model train club we have one member who doesn't airbrush. He brush paints & his painting looks as good as airbrushing. He thins his brush paints (never revealed his formula), but says relies on a lot of patience. Thinning seems to allow the paint to settle flatter. I read about this technique long ago a auto modeling magazine.

Zup, I guess you were lucky, because I ordered like two months ago, and it scheduled to arrive by December…wow! I just hope it gets here.

one thing i,ve noticed about the Tamiya TS and AS spray can paints if decanted from the "rattle can" and used through an airbrush is that they,re very easy to use and very "forgiving" of any errors. i,ve got a pretty large shipment of the enamels on it,s way from overseas and i,m sure they,ll behave the same way. i,m sure they can be used over an undercoat of lacquer-based primer with no ill effects. i mix my own undercoat for aircraft using a 1:1 mix of Tamiya TS-27 Matte White and TS-17 Gloss Aluminum and it comes out as an opaque light silver-grey with excellent covering properties and just the right shade,not too light or too dark. old rule-of-thumb is that it,s always best to use an undercoat of white for brighter colors such as red,yellow and orange.

Wanna see what type of paint can be used on gshock resin band. And some live application whether it would not crack on application..

Those enamel paints go great with cheap hardware store lacquer thinner. I buy the gallon size.

I am just starting to paint my gundams and watching almost all your videos and i really wanna say that i wish you were my dad lol.

@Barbatos Rex man I love your avatar didn't think anyone beside me know what that is. good picture.

I just want you to know that I leave your vids playing in the background while I build my car kits... Like a grandma and The Young and the Restless on a random TV lol. I didn't know Tamiya made enamel paints...kinda mad we don't have them here because I brush paint and I just love enamels.

Thats one of the wery good things about lacquer thinners are that they thin tree types of hobby paint. Enamels, Alcohol based and of course laqcuers. You can not go wrong with Tamiya's laqcuer thinner retarder type works great with every solvent paint from Mr hobby, Tamiya, Testors, Humbrol etc. The retarder gives you such nice resaults and it works just as good with alcohol based as it does with laqcuer paint witch it is intended for.

There is a dive shop here in Halifax NS that also has a bunch of model railroad and cat stuff. They carry Tamiya paints there. Really nice stuff! Thanks for another great video.

That Tamiya paint looks great, now need a video masking two colours, great work

Excellent! Great review bud. I’m definitely going to pick up a set of these. Great looking paints. Thanks for the review.

Great review as always. i've been hand brushing these Tamiya enamel paints for a while now. and i can vouch for the results that you came up in this video. Iit works great for overcoat (or overbrush in my case if that;s make sense) over a lacquer painted parts that i've air brushed (i used mr color ones). and it works well with lacquer top coat on top of that too (you know, to seal the paints and decals). so i used these tamiya paints mainly for detailing and panel lining gunpla piece. actually i have no idea these tamiya paints works well with airbrush too as i am too afraid to ruin my airbrush if i used this. i find these paints cure almost like "rubbery" thing when i leave some small residue in parts or hand brush that i have (i hope that makes sense). but its great to know you can use pretty much use ALL of the thinners available to clean this paint. thank you for that i learned a lot ps: i've been watching your reviews and i find that you have a lot of that gunpla part you use for testing lol ps2: i LOVE the gunmetal color in this paint too! :D

Excellent video as always, thank you. People should not be worried about ordering some thing from Poland I have never had a single issue.

I got mine from Sunward hobbies in Canada, Free shipping (in Canada at least) over $60cad

OMG the clear blue is so beautiful

Looks great! I have been back into modeling for only 6 months. These videos are great for learning about air brushing and the different paints. I haven’t seen these enamels in Canada yet, but I haven’t done a search for them yet. Thanks again for sharing Rex!

Hello So you can use flat paint as a primer.

Thanks for the knowledge share, excellent video!! The results are quite impressive! I'm about to brush paint a small badge on a fishing reel that is currently golden (white plastic painted gold), with X-18 (Semi-gloss black) and I am wondering if I can brush paint directly overthe current gold paint or if I should apply any type of primer first or, at least, run a bit of fine sand paper over it? I can't remove the badge from the reel so I can't easily spray it (which is what i woiuld have preferred). Thanks in advance for the advice.

Super detailed and well explained, thanks dude. Was great.

Super-Hobby is my favorite hobby supplier, affordable, good and fast shipping. I like the Pactra Acrylic paint they sell, lots of colours and only 1.20 per bottle and works great! Have you already tried those?

Thanks for another great demo! Really impressed with how smooth the flats turned out. Kinda disappointed in that X-15 though, been looking for a nice lime but they always end up too neon yellow looking.

Just the video I needed desperately! Thanks a lot! I was kinda afraid of using enamels but now everything is clear for me. Thanks a lot for the information, a like and subscription from me. Regards!

Very good demonstration. Well presented and good tips. Well done👍

Where did u get your clear paint stand u have the tamiya bottle paints in ??

Hello. I love your channel. You are doing a great service for modelers all over the world. I build styrene models but my passion are resin garage kits. Not asking you to get into resin kits but would you consider doing some paint tests on blocks of resin? I build anime character models and have been out of the hobby for quite a while. Also, there are a significant amount of garage kits made of vinyl. Some anime characters but a LOT of Kaiju or space monsters like Godzilla that are made of either resin or vinyl. Each have their challenges when paint hits material that is not styrene. Did you know that vinyl and enamel paint are incompatible? The paint remains sticky. Only acrylics and lacquers are compatible with vinyl.

I do modeling and I airbrush fine art. You might want to try Golden's High Flow Acrylics. Golden invented acrylic paint and their High Flow Acrylics were designed for airbrushing. Also as a nice side note Golden is a employee owned business in New York.

If using enamel paint, then panel lining on top, I often find I can’t clean the panel lines as it would rub off the base enamel layer~ should I be using a lacquer clear coat or enamel clear coat before panel lining? Or must I use true acrylic for panel lining? I tend to find acrylic paints don’t jump out as well as lacquer or enamel

Hi, Barbatos. Thanx for the great video. I have 2 questions actually. First, when you airbrush the clear paint, do you also thin it or just use it straight from the jar? Second, do you also thin the paint when brushing?

Thank you for sharing… I’m thinking about getting a few of this paints. 👍🏼❤️

Thank you for you're great knowledge! I've been dying to find Tamiya enamels!!!

I don`t use an airbrush, but I enjoyed how you used those Tamiya paints and how they came out. It was a great help to me. I have used tamiya paints both spray and bottle paints for many years. I think they are great paints to use. Again thanks for the seminar on how to correctly use the paints. What kind of spray booth is that that you were using? Is it pretty expensive? Again thanks for taking the time to do this.

Interesting video, thanks for this comparison. I really like the X15 from the jar, would be awesome for a future VIPcar project. But it looks like it ain't easy getting that exact colour once airbrushed. Thanks again and well done 👍

Barbatos have you ever tested Vallejos solvent based paint, its called liquid gold and they can be thinned with leveling thinner, laqcuer thinner and x20a. The hole lineup is suppose to be better than the regular vallejo gold and metallic paints since they are solvent based.

The metallic colours are very nice

Awesome! Thanks for sharing

Where did you get the paint display holder!!!

Great job on your reviews

Warning: the problem with enamels is unless you have a food dehydrator (like Barbatos Rex) it will take a long, long time for the paint to dry (maybe a few days or longer). This is one of the reasons why modelers went to acrylics and lacquers for the fast drying time.

Enamel is better than acrylic. I once had to use Testors acrylic because I couldn't find Humbrol enamels and it was a bad experience.

Great vid, thanks for sharing! 👍👍

Can i hand brush tamiya enamel 1:1 enamel paint and thinner without a respirator, in a room with windows open? Would it be safe? I heard the fumes can be toxic, can i also apply it without a primer?

Hi, Barbatos. Thanks for the video. I want to ask, how long do I wait for the layer one of the Tamiya Enamel to dry, before I hand paint the 2nd coat? Thanks.

Great to good

Most hobby shops have them here in Canada

another old tried-and-true Rule Of Thumb is that lacquers are the strongest paints with the harshest solvents.....next come oil based or lacquer-based enamels and finally water based acrylics such as Tamiya or the water/latex based Gunze-Sangyo Aqueous Hobby Colors. you can safely apply apply acrylics over lacquers or enamels but NOT the other way around....!

U need to do some tutorials showing how u paint entire kits. That would be awesome!

So for airbrush 1:1 ratio is good and for handpainting no thinning required?

What about painting die-cast metal model cars? That's what I deal with exclusively! Do you have any tips and suggestions for that? Much appreciated thank you Robert.

Love your videos man! Very informative, do you think this tamiya enamel is more durable than mr.color?

Those tamiya enamel are good as the testors or model master enamels?

Someone must have called you out for mispronouncing aluminum. 😂😂😂 Keep up the good reviews, Sir. You're a God Send for the Scale modeling community. 💯💯

im just gonna guess 1 to 1 ratio that you can mix colors and how do you feel about enamel paint when ten 15 years go buy maybe lacquer only type

hey there, what's the best clear red paint to paint by brush for gems or blood drops?

Great review, think I need to get some👍

Tamiya enamels have been around forever. I'm surprised that you've never tested it before. Still, since I don't use enamels much at all this was a very helpful test to see. Might try them out more thoroughly. On a car maybe. Why do you think enamels just don't get much use compared to acrylics or lacquers? From what I can tell it's the same here in Asia.

Great job...as always!

Looks like u missed the purple 🙂 The enemal is widely used for reverse wash, I think if you thin it with leveling thinner, you cannot do the reverse wash and it cannot be wash away with X20

There is a place in nj that stock these

Quest - for that lime/fluorescent green, did you ever test the effects when/if brushed-on, (and how many coats) in terms of coverage and color matching (as shown on the bottle/cap)? Nice paint, would you recommend it over the testors bottles? (B-T-W Thanks for the test/evaluation of the various thinners. Would definitely use the “box store” type thinner, and use the savings for other hobby items).

AK interactive metal colors works terrible with a brush for me, so I bought some revell enamel, In a few days I will gona test it, but is seems very diferent, the enamel from revell does not show a two liquid phases, in the "AK interactive" they used a solvent, when you shake the bottle to homogenize the paint and touch the solution with the brush the sparkles dont stick to the brush, and you get more solvent than sparkles, so I am not recomend it by my experience, AK interactive metallic only works with an airbrush.

what differnec between X 27 clear red vs Tamiya Enamel X-27??????????????????????????

Interesting to see these Tamiya offerings vs Testors. I'm guessing the X-?? name is universal, as the Acrylic and Enamel offerings from Tamiya are both labeled the same. Seems T800?? is the 10ml gloss enamels T810?? is the 23ml gloss acrylic T815?? is the 10ml gloss acrylic Another awesome share, thanks :)

so mecha painting is only basecoating? cause i didnt see any highlight work or weathering in your videos. just wondering

What do you use to thin X-31? I suggest trying X-12 gold leaf and try it with tamiya enamel thinner, it doesn't work & will make the paint coagulate instead I notice some of paint oil(seperators?) Are different on these enamels, if you leave it for few days, you come up with clear colored oils, where as gold leaf & titanium gold seem to be green instead Tldr, i can't thin tamiya enamel gold leaf & tamiya enamel titanium gold with tamiya enamel thinner, does this happen to you?

if you thin these with a lacquer thinner, can i still remove the paint with lighter fluid or their x20 thinner? planning on doing some reverse washing for the first time.

I would like to see a video on army painter paints

ThanX for another great video! According to airbrushing how do You compare Tamiya Lacquer with Tamiya enamel?

Im just gonna stick to acrylics and lacquer paints, with this u need a special cleaner to clean the airbrush just like u showed in the video.

Great helpful test as ever. I love your work and have seen all of your tests. It saves me a lot of money and issues. Thanks for that. Maybe you can try a test of Zero Paints and there 2K Clear Coat. I've heard these are awesome paints for cars. But here in Germany very hard to get it. Greetings.

No thinner when brushing?

Love this review. Will these paints adhere to lexan RC bodies?

Does Tamiya make the full range of colors similar to their acrylics? I am experimenting too with paints and thinking of converting to enamels. Thanks for sharing

I use lacquer thinner for the Testers enamel paints. Can I use lacquer thinner with these Tamiya enamel paints?

@barbatos rex did you thin the clear color blue?

When brushing enamel paint with a normal brush, can i just open the little jar and start using it or do i need to do anything to it

Hello.. How much ratio thinning clear color enamel tamiya for airbrush , btw i use leveling thinner too

Are the sms paint test coming soon?

So what is the advantage of these enamels (over lacquers or acrylics) on the small parts of cars? I do see people using them for this exact purpose!

Can you hand brush these enamels without thinning the paint?

Is the large can (pt. gal. ) found in stores, of oderless enamal thinners the same as the ones you show ?

does the booth have to vent to the outside?

Have you try it over stynylrez primmer

I made a mistake by thining x-22 clear by x-20a acrylic thinner. Then my airbrush got clogged 😂. I remember oil and water doesnt mix😅.

How fast does it dry without dehydrator?

Barbatos any luck in finding Zvezda acrylic?

Where you get the paint rack?

when you put the parts/spoons in the dehydrator does it do anything to the paint? like make it harder and more resistant than just air drying or it just to speed up the drying process?

I've used metallic colors from both Testors and Tamiya enamels and they never seem to dry to a hard durable finish (I had no issues with flat enamels drying to a hard finish). Have you had the same problem with metallic enamels?

Tamiya acrylic paint need thinner?