Tamiya XP and LP paints?

Can you mix them together in liquid form since their both Lacquer based?

I don’t know of any XP paints, but if you mean XF then no. Different kind of lacquers.

XF paints are water-soluble; the LPs require a lacquer thinner.

XF paints are alcohol-based acrylics, LP paints are lacquer-based acrylics. I doubt they’ll mix well, but as with all things paint, you have very little to lose by trying it: put a drop of each onto a palette and mix them, see what happens. Be sure to clean the brush with something that will get both types of paint out, or with two different things.

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I don’t know LP paints, but XF can be thinned with lacquer thinner too, and this improve their grip on unprimed plastic surfaces.

Put a drop of each onto a palette and use something like a coffee stirrer to mix them, then you don’t have to worry about gumming up a paintbrush, particularly if there’s a bad reaction between the two.

Tamiya acrylic paint is a hybrid, not a true acrylic. As such you can use their acrylic or their lacquer thinner. Personally, I use the yellow capped lacquer thinner with the acrylic paint when spray painting. I believe that Mr Color lacquer thinner works well also when spraying. I am a big fan of spraying Tamiya paint, but not brushing with it. As far as mixing the two paint types, I am in agreement with Sean. Normally I would say no way. However, because the XF is a hybrid then, maybe but probably not. I would test a mix of the two like he suggested. If…it works I would stick with the Tamiya lacquer thinner to spray with.

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You won’t know if you can actually paint with the mixture that way, though. Best use an old brush for these kinds of experiments.

How do you define a “true acrylic,” though? AFAIK, by the fact that the paint uses acrylic resin as a binding agent, and not by the solvent used. Whether it’s water-, alcohol-, lacquer-, or whatever-based, it’s all acrylic paint. (The problem being that to modellers, “acrylic paint” generally means “water- or alcohol-based paint” rather than referring to whether the paint has acrylic resin in it or not.)

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Using a coffee stirrer, though, prevents you from potentially sacrificing a brush until you find out whether the two paints are miscible on the palette.

“Acrylic” refers to the way the paint binder molecules form long chains when they cure. The carrier or solvent (aka “thinner”) used in the paint has nothing to do with whether or not that paint is an “acrylic.”

The first “acrylic” paints available to modelers were water soluble, so a sort of modeler’s “urban legend” has grown up around the idea that acrylic=water and that any acrylic paint that uses something other than water as a carrier is “not a true acrylic.” This is simply incorrect.

Paint is generally composed of three components, the pigments (which provide the color), the binders (which quite literally “glue” the pigments to the substrate or surface being painted) and the carrier (aka “thinners” or "solvents). On application, the carrier evaporates leaving behind the binder and pigments. During this part of the process, the acrylic binder undergoes a chemical reaction forming long chains of polymer which attach to the substrate and hold the particles of pigment to it. One of the characteristics of acrylic binders is that they become insoluble after they have cured and formed their polymer chains.

This is why you can’t “redisolve” acrylic paints that have “dried” or partially “dried.” A solvent may remove the paint, but it will remain in clumps and blobs (sometimes very fine particles) because the binder has already undergone its chemical reaction. The advantage of this is that once cured, acrylic paints are much more resistant to other solvents preventing lifting and increasing durability.

The binders in lacquers (and many enamels and most oils) will redissolve (lacquers almost entirely) allowing those dried paints to be returned to solution. This has some advantages depending on the methods of application, especially for hand brushing or touching up or starting and stopping the job with smooth transitions between the older work and the newer applications of paint.

The point, though, is that acrylic paints are formulated using many different carriers, water being only one. Something that confuses some modelers is that some cellulose carriers (like alcohol) will also go into solution with water. Thus, an acrylic paint that is formulated with cellulose carriers might also be able to take some amount of water into solution or if formulated with water as a carrier they may take some amount of a cellulose solvent into solution.

However, the nature of the carrier has almost nothing to do with the chemical process in the way the acrylic binders function and form polymer chains. The “true” nature of the acrylic paint is not dependent on the kind of carrier its formulated with.

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And results can be unpredictable depending, I assume, on other additives in the paint. Tamiya and Mr. Aqueous paints are alcohol-based but will thin just fine with water. On the other hand, if you add alcohol to Italeri paints, which are water-based, it works for a short while but then it will start forming clumps and strands which makes it impossible to spray neatly, and then at all as it clogs up your airbrush. Or at least, I assume the second part will happen, as I cleaned it out before it got that far :slight_smile:

The only way to know for sure is to try it out. But it seems a great number of modellers are averse to doing that …

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Indeed. I guess I should have emphasized “some” in that observation. How much water or alcohol or lacquer thinner will go into solution is dependent on the exact formulation of that particular paint. My basic advice is to use the manufacturer’s proprietary branded thinners unless and until you know different.

As to mixing different types of paints (lacquers with acrylics, or acrylics with enamels, etc.) it’s important to understand the nature of the binders and carriers in each type being mixed. However, as you say, there’s nothing wrong with experimentation.

It is quite possible to, say, change the drying or curing time of a particular paint by varying the amounts of water, alcohol, and / or lacquer thinners used to reduce it as well as putting in other additives (like flow aides or retarders). This assumes, of course, that the paint formulation is compatable with those other ingredients.

Something else to consider, if someone uses lacquer thinners to reduce paint for spraying, is that those thinners, themselves, are sold for use under different temperature and humidity bands, which again, can alter significantly the pot-life, drying and curing times of the mixed paint.

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