Tamiya Spray Paints for plastics?

[Helias_Tancred]

Has anyone ever used Tamiya spray paints for plastics? And if so how was your experience with them?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[Gurth]

They’re paints made by one of the world’s largest plastic kit manufacturers for the purpose of painting those kits. I’d say you have very little to lose by buying one and trying it …

[madscuzzy]

The primer is excellent.  The paint grain is very very fine.  The colours however, do not match our paint colours.

[OrangeBob]

As madscuzzy mentions, they are very good primers, but you will have to fiddle a bit to get our usual paints to match.

[Helias_Tancred]

Their dark blue is a gloss! Feh. 

[elmo]

TS61 NATO Green is a good match for Castellan Green and goes on smooth. My only complaint is the price and the size of the cans.

[Gurth]

Their dark blue is a gloss! Feh.

That’s what matt varnish is for.

[Leman Russ SW]

I find the finish on them too shiny they do not hold on to washes well.

[Yajirobe]

I mostly just use Tamiya sprays.

 

For infantry I  usually prime with Tamiya TS-6 Matt Black or TS-1 Red Brown. They are great. Expensive though. They are only about 1/4 of the size of the GW can for over half the cost.

 

For anything larger than your standard infantry model, especially if there are large panels, first prime with Tamiya Fine Surface Primer, white or grey.

[Kaedes Nex]

Tamiya's light grey Surface Primer has been one of the most celebrated sprays in the model community for years. I liken it to Testor's Dullcote. Often hard to find, expensive, doesn't match any of our acrylic paints and varnishes, and seemingly too overrated to be true, but in the end, is pretty much one of the best quality products for the hobby you'll find. I personally use more convenient alternatives for both varnish and spraypaints, but I wouldn't say no to Tamiya.

[Badaab]

I've experience using Tamiya Fine Surface Primer (in white) and the Surface Primer (in light grey).  Both are excellent for priming models, though I would advise using the Fine Surface Primer for plastics.
As far as the size, Tamiya cans are 180ml, and GW cans are 400ml, so are a bit more expensive (at least here in the US).

Sometimes I will also encounter an outage of GW primer, particularly white, at a local store that carries GW paints.  When asked about it, the store will often say one of two things:

-"more people prefer black primer to white, so we don't order it as often." 

-"GW primer is too expensive, so we don't stock it" (and they will have the entire line of Army Painter sprays, which are fine for terrain, but miserable for miniatures).
Usually these stores are specialist hobby shops or games stores that only carry miniatures game for hobbies.  I can almost always find Tamiya primer at a more general hobby store that has plastic kits (ie military stuff), trains, and RC, so if I'm in a pinch for primer, that'll do.

[Daevyll]

Superfluous remark perhaps (but better safe than sorry) : make sure you buy the right Tamiya spray.

 

Tamiya also carries a line of spray paints intended for polycarbonate/lexan r/c bodies, which you don't want on your minis. The cans are very similar so look carefully at what you pick up.

 

Other than that, they are fine.

[Gurth]

Those have “PC” prefixes to the paint numbers, IIRC, while what you want for 40K models are the “TS”-numbered cans.

[Kaedes Nex]

Superfluous remark perhaps (but better safe than sorry) : make sure you buy the right Tamiya spray.

 

Tamiya also carries a line of spray paints intended for polycarbonate/lexan r/c bodies, which you don't want on your minis. The cans are very similar so look carefully at what you pick up.

 

Other than that, they are fine.

 

I don't think that's superfluous at all. Newer hobbyists may not realize Tamiya deals largely in enamels and lacquers and not just acrylics, unlike miniature-specific companies like Vallejo, Army Painter, Citadel, and P3 who tend to be 100% acrylic.

 

It's also a good tip for buying any kind of spray primer. A lot of home improvement warehouses sell random brands of spraypaint which may be primers, but aren't always acrylic or good for finely detailed miniatures.

[Bartali]

On the subject of Tamiya, I love their paint through my airbrush. Acrylics with an alcohol base that dry super fast. Really easy to clean my airbrush after too as opposed to the water based acrylics like GW/Vallejo etc

[Kaedes Nex]

If you enjoy Tamiya because it sprays so well, keep an eye out for Gunze Sangyo, another Japanese (I think) company. They're the guys who make the "Mr. Hobby" and "Mr. Colour" stuff and their paint is similarly smooth to spray.

[Gurth]

Tamiya deals largely in enamels and lacquers

No, they don’t. Yes, Tamiya has a line of enamel paints (sold in narrow square bottles) and the already-mentioned spray paints for polycarbonate RC car bodies, but when people talk about Tamiya paints, I’m willing to bet that the vast majority is referring to their acrylics. For I daresay most of us older armour (and aircraft, car, etc.?) modellers, Tamiya acrylics were the first non-enamel paints we ever came across. Until I was 14 or 15 or so, I’d painted every model I ever built with enamels from tins by Humbrol and the occasional one from Revell, because that was all there was.

miniature-specific companies like Vallejo, Army Painter, Citadel, and P3

You mean “F/SF wargame-specific companies” — else you’re making it sound like Tamiya isn’t a company in the business of making miniatures/models