# air brushing with fingernail polish?



## joegri

can someone speak about airbrushing with fingernail polish pros /conns ,seems i go to the local drug store and find myself lookin at all the different colors and some of the pearl colors would look kinda trick on a lil cars. anytakers ? thanx joe g


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## slotcarman12078

I have tried once, and need to try again. I thinned it out with acetone, but sadly not enough and it was spraying really thick. I had to ramp up the pressure big time, and the stuff was drying before it hit the body (going on a little lumpy). I'm not sure if reducer would help the situation or not. I have an assortment of pearls I'm itching to try myself (not on myself!!!). :lol:


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## joegri

thanx for that info. i was thinking that it might melt a resin, and didnt want to try. think i might try on a testbody ,but i dont have any no such thing junk resin bodies.i,m thinkin milk thin/low air does that sound correct?


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## Bill Hall

*Ball park*

4:1 minimum ....but ya sorta have to feel your way along and take things like temperature, pressure, and orifice size into consideration. If it's cobwebbing yer to thick. If you have clod-age cheese it's the wrong thinner. 

I could go on for hours, but the important thing is to determine what exactly you are spraying and what the recommended solvent/thinner is to properly atomize AND carry it to the workpiece. For lacquer ....use lacquer thinner (a blend) rather than a single high flash solvent. Thin coats with sufficient flash time between coats.

R&D and 'sperimentation are part of the deal.


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## bobhch

I did some searching on Google & found this ( My words are all in red )

Nail Polish is the newest area of painting these little cars - We will touch briefly on it here. 

Nail Polish is a Lacquer "paint" with chemical additives that react to cause super fast drying and durability. Traditionally it is made to go on smooth, dry fast and become chip resistant by design. As well it is available in just about any color from standard blood red to blues and purples and even Gothic Blacks.

Some paint the nail polish directly on their base coat with the bottle brush - although this is said to work, only a few samples have surfaced. Instead the preferred method is to shoot a thinned version of the polish through a standard airbrush. Airbrushing Allows the right amount of paint and air to mix giving a smoother, more attractive finish. 

To airbrush the nail polish it must be thinned: Two schools of thought here - the first uses Lacquer thinner, this thins that paint very well (most recommend a 50/50 thinning although it does depend upon the polish manufacturer) but depending upon your base coat and or primer it can react funny with enamels and some acrylics causing a crackling effect when drying. Obviously this ruins your custom. Have a real neat Nuther Dave Lava Orange & Red Crackle car and I might just try this to get that effect...ruins your custom? Please! :tongue: 

The second school prefers acetone - again a 50/50 mixture is a good place to start - it does not produce any side effects when painting over enamels and acrylics, cleans up well and is as easy to use as Lacquer thinner. Use this also at 100% for clean up of the airbrush as well. 

It is not recommended that Paint thinner be used as nail polish contains different properties then standard paint and this can cause clogging of your airbrush.

Drying time should be fairly quick and it is recommended that additional coats, if necessary, be sprayed within a few minutes of that drying time and before permanent hardening begins. 

As with all paints you will need to experiment with pressure, amount of air and amount of paint before reaching that perfect flow. Again, like all materials the cheaper the nail polish the cheaper the results. "Ya get what ya pay for" A drug store $1.29 bottle is probably not going to yield desired results as a high-end OPI or like brand - these can run as much as $6-8 per bottle.

Read some other Google searches on this. One was about painting a plastic 1/24th model. It did say that you had to put on a very light first coat to prep the plastic & keep it from melting. Then he said to let the nail polish dry for 24 hours. Then you can go for your second coat and finish it off!

Heck I don't know if this helps at all but, it does seem to me that there is an interest but, not as much information about this as I thought there would be. I may just be looking in the wrong place? My search was "fingernail polish airbrushing" and another was "fingernail polish painting".

I have so many bottles of paint to use up first. Who knows maybee some day? 

Bob...why don't they call it toenail paint? lol...zilla


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## slotcarman12078

Thanks for the intel guys!! I might drag out the brush tomorrow for a session.. If I get to the nail polish, I'll post up the results...


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## joegri

same me would love to do some r+d but thats gonna wait till the flood tide drops here.still givin the vac a work out every 5 or so hours. that was all good info above thanx fellas joe g


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## Bill Hall

Practice on yer toes!!!!


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## lenny

Sally's Beauty Supply actually has something called 'nail polish thinner'. It has other solvents in it and works better than straight acetone.

A side note about acetone. It's cheaper if you get it from the cosmetic aisle than the hardware section.


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## Bill Hall

*Solvent permeable models*



bobhch said:


> snip*****
> 
> Read some other Google searches on this. One was about painting a plastic 1/24th model. It did say that you had to put on a very light first coat to prep the plastic & keep it from melting. Then he said to let the nail polish dry for 24 hours. Then you can go for your second coat and finish it off! snip******
> 
> Bob...why don't they call it toenail paint? lol...zilla



This is a great snippet Bob!

Once you stray away from enamels and acrylics, conventional styrene models can melt at a maximum and warp at a minimum. This of course includes most all vintage slot cars.

When a solvent laden liquid film flashes (skins over), it traps the residual solvent under the skin and next to the plastic. Prior to re-coating, the residual solvent must be allowed to out gas. Obviously this requires time. This is one reason why thin coats are preferrable because it lessens the outgas time between coats.

Secondly, thicker layers trap solvents against the solvent permeable parent material. The longer the contact time, the closer one gets to a dangerous equilibrium where the top coat and body become equally saturated with high concentrations of solvent... AKA chemical meltdown. (My "plum crazy" speedster version of the Faller Cadillac comes to mind.) Hours of work were rendered into a pork rind due to impatience.

Lacquer should always be applied light and eazy.


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