Model Forum / General / Models / August 2005

    It's all in the carrier...  Enamels use (typically) mineral (white)
spirits or paint thinner, a more generic name here in the States - they
are essentially the same.  Lacquers use, not surprisingly, lacquer
thinner as a carrier for the pigments in the paint.  IIRC,
nitrocellulose is the name for lacquer used in Great Britain.
    Now, to confound things further, you can use lacquer thinner to thin
(reduce) enamels though you cannot use mineral spirits to reduce
lacquers.  Two different animals.
    All of this is of some benefit to we modelers.  You can lay down a
lacquer paint and use an enamel over it without worry of the successive
layer attacking the previous coat.  You can then use an acrylic on top
of the enamel for the same reason.  This is helpful if you can only find
given colors in certain paint ranges.  You want to lay the 'hottest',
i.e., most volatile thinner-based paint, down first.
    I'm not certain why these formulas developed but drying time is an
obvious offshoot/benefit.  Lacquers are very fast drying, followed by
enamels and then arcylics.  Toxicity is another thing to consider.
Acrylics are considered the safest or least harmful.

    Acetone is yet another useful carrier/thinner/reducer as is evidenced
by nail polish.  Typically, nail polishes are too thin to cover well as
they're designed to be applied thickly, hence the brushes in the
bottles.  You can reduce and airbrush them but they're not very opaque.
 To use them over different colors can offer some neat effects, though.

Frank Kranick

Both lacquers and enamels contain pigments and vehicles.  The enamel
vheicle undergoes a real chemical reaction when it dries (the solvent
evaporates).  The lacquer dries with the solvent evaporating vehicle
doing a simpler reaction, and the pigment particles kind of "stick"
together.  The solvents in lacquers are usually "hotter" than those of
enamels, and may affect the plastic more. Indeed, acetone is one of the
possible lacquer thinners (there are several).  Also, nail polish used
to be a lacquer- don't know about modern ones.

The above is true for older, non-acrylics.  Acrylics are another thing
all together, and there are both acrylic enamels and acrylic lacquers.
I find it a bit difficult understanding the chemistry of acrylics,
personally.

Lacquer (cellulose) thinner is a great vehicle when
spraying.
It keeps the paint thinned as it goes through the airbrush,
but - if applied
carefully and NOT allowed to 'wet' the surface, will
evaporate before
hitting the surface.
Otherwise it will eat the plastic.
Acetone, though slower acting, will do the same.
White (mineral) spirit is safe on plastics, and is a good
degreaser/cleaner also

Chek