Born Paint TRU42010 Standard Thinner 500 ml Bottle

Born Paint TRU42010 Standard Thinner 500 ml Bottle

so on it’s own this is a very good thinner and i find it is as good or better than tamiya/mr hobby with myself leaning towards it being better every day. i have been using it the past 5 models over the last 6 months and first got it to ensure compatibility with the born paints i purchased but after finding out how good the metal thinner they make is i started using it with tamiya and gaia paints to pre thin 30-100ml bottles to have a homogenous mix to use in the future. as soon as i used these mixes i realized this sprayed smooth as silk and i pretty much stopped seeing any issues i had been seeing using mr hobby and tamiya thinners. i have a lot of air movement in my paint booth which can draft over the piece as it paints and dry it causing light orange peel. even mr leveling thinner was giving me issues that i didn’t see with some pre thinned paints like hobby mio.

then i got a bottle of gaia retarder max on clearance locally and added 6% by volume to the born standard thinner (30ml retarder max to a full 500ml bottle thinner)and this became everything hobby mio was for me finish wise with none of the questionable solvents and smell. this mix cuts every brand of lacquer i have tried including tamiya, born, gaia, modo, jumpwind, silveroaks, and older model masters i found locally and they all spray better than any of the batches i made using the same colors with tamiya or mr hobby thinners with self leveling properties that make me leveling look like rapid thinner and gives mirror slick gloss finishes. it also seems to stretch coverage a bit with paints that i used to find were dull and seemed to show the primer or plastic unless several coats were built up will be much more vivid and opaque. it dries slow enough to allow the film to become uniform and cling but still is cured enough to mask or handle 15 minutes in a dehydrator or 2 hours without.

i tried adding from 1% up to 12% retarded incrementally and found 6% the sweet spot for my environment which had 45% humidity, 74 •F temperature and a lot of airflow. 8% was about the same but 10% clearly was taking longer than it needed to dry and showed finger prints and dulled when masked unless left overnight to cure.

like i said at the start, by itself this thinner works as good as any standard thinner from a premium hobby paint maker and i genuinely feel it edges out the big two a little bit as it really does take the pigments from their settled clumps and breaks them into your mixed paint very evenly with less issues in your airbrush. but that combo i’ve found works for me in ways that make for far less frustration applying the paints.

fwiw the combo cost less than mr leveling thinner does typically and far less than it does when people are gouging prices during a shortage. imho it also smells far better if you happen to smell it without a mask and does not etch clear PET mixing bottles like dspiae or hobby mio bottles which mr leveling will definitely do if it gets on them. overall a great thinner and great value and, if amended, perhaps the best thinner on the market for gloss finishes.