thinning Mr. Surfacer 1000

[darth_daniel]

Hi guys, I´m sure someone´s asked this before but my search didn´t show any useful results. What can I use to thin Mr. Surfacer? From what i´ve read there´s Mr. Thinner or something like that, but can I use alcohol or lacquer thinner? Is this stuff alcohol based? Many thanks in advance for an answer!

[Kun2112]

I highly reccommend Gunze's Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. It is hard to find in the states, but the results are well worth it. That being said, I use 91-99% isopropyl alcohol applied to a cotton swab to "sand" Mr. Surfacer, so I suppose it could be used as a thinner. It smells like a lacquer so lacquer thinner might work also.
Keep in mind since I have only tried thining it with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner.

[Kylwell]

Seconds on the Mr Leveling Thinner. Blappy turned me onto this (he said the first one's free) and I've never gone back.

[Zen-Builder]

Mr Leveling Thinner if you are airbushing, if not Mr Thinner should do.

Best stuff I found for it.

[eeun]

I've only just started using Mr. Surfacer in an airbrush instead of rattlecans, but I've found a very thin mix of roughly 4:1 ratio of lacquer thinner to Mr. surfacer goes on nicely. It builds up slowly, and bonds well.
Closer to a 1:1 ratio you get a terrible spider-web effect.

Lacquer thinner also works well to thin it when brushing, too.

Usual caveats about good ventilation apply...it's not a friendly substance.

[Sdf-1]

I use 91-99% isopropyl alcohol applied to a cotton swab to "sand" Mr. Surfacer

Big thanks! Gotta try that out!

[macfrank]

I highly reccommend Gunze's Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. It is hard to find in the states, but the results are well worth it. That being said, I use 91-99% isopropyl alcohol applied to a cotton swab to "sand" Mr. Surfacer

denatured alcohol (Ethanol + crap to make it undrinkable) works very well at "sanding" down Mr. Surfacer. You can also use it to thin the stuff in a pinch, but it's not the ideal thinner for it.

Frank

[Kun2112]

I use 91-99% isopropyl alcohol applied to a cotton swab to "sand" Mr. Surfacer

Big thanks! Gotta try that out!

It takes a certian "touch" to get it right. Don't give up if you initally find the end results are not what you wanted, as it is a very useful tecnique for areas with detail nearby, or when you don't want to do too much sanding. I learned on the enginepods and "wings" of a starfury: http://www.starshipmodeler.org/gallery12/df_fury_05.jpg

[Sdf-1]

Actually I found "the touch" real soon. I got very good results almost right away. This technique makes many things so much easier & faster for me. It will be a good seam technique as well. I was aware that you can do this trick for seams, but I didn't know it works for smoothing difficult areas, and that you can use alcohol as solvent. I'm very happy about learning this.

Oh, btw. you can also thin Mr. surfacer with acetone. Should work perfectly fine for airbrushing. But I haven't yet tried it myself. That's the recommendation I got to use with it, as a cheap & easy alternative to ordering expensive brand thinner from Japan. But as I said, I have yet to try it with airbrush.

[SpaceDuck]

I've only just started using Mr. Surfacer in an airbrush instead of rattlecans, but I've found a very thin mix of roughly 4:1 ratio of lacquer thinner to Mr. surfacer goes on nicely. It builds up slowly, and bonds well.
Closer to a 1:1 ratio you get a terrible spider-web effect.

Lacquer thinner also works well to thin it when brushing, too.

Usual caveats about good ventilation apply...it's not a friendly substance.

But Spider Web effects can be just the trick for certain things. I used to let paint setup in a cap and then string it across, strand by strand- so thanks for another tip!

[darth_daniel]

Thanks for the help everyone!