Heeeelllllppppppp

[Gary]

What did I do wrong? I airbrushed dark sea grey satin in my Skyray and the paint won't dry.

Straight from the tin with a few drops of laquer thinner to thin it out and the stuff won't dry. I did the satin white and no problemo.

What in the world could I have done wrong here?

[lancer]

There is a good chance it's your paint Gary.  I have airbrushed 3 different Humbrol satin paints recently, and they all sprayed like I had over thinned them. It all pooled and thinned and looked awful. Had to wipe it all off and start again with slightly thicker paint.  In one instance, I've had to switch to the Revell matt version. So I think it may well be the paint.
On another note, have you tried plain old white spirit to thin the paint with? That tends to work pretty well.
Hope this helps.

[Hobbes]

For airbrushing, I use Revell paint thinner. This seems to work better than generic white spirit.
The paint:thinner ratio is fairly critical, and you need to mix the paint thoroughly before pouring it from the tinlet (I got that wrong this weekend on the Tornado - the initial mix came out of the airbrush looking like dirty water. I used a stirring stick to get some of the gunk off the bottom of the tinlet into the mix, that thickened it enough)

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Gary
Like the other guys have said - mix, mix again and then mix some more:

Humbrol paints are really superb, but they need some prep, I poor the contents into a small jar and add a pipette-full of HUMBROL enamel thinners - this is more 'refined' than white spirit and is more 'sympathetic' to the paint.

Then I mix either with my ancient Dremel drill or more usually an old piece of sprue - listening to Led Zep or U2 whilst doing this is compulsory ! - usually for a minimum of five minutes.

Just keep working the paint until it achieves the consistency of milk.

Final thought - If you have an old model or piece of scrap plastic-card then test spray first on these before aiming the airbrush at your latest masterpiece !

HTH

Ian

[Radish]

I use a brush, but the trouble is in this weather, it dries before getting to the damned model so I have so much painting to do and can't even bloody start on lots. The ruddy weather here's lovely, around 28-29-30 degrees, but not much help with modelling.
Lots of great ideas though.

Anyway, many chaps I know have airbrushed with the same problem and as Ian and others have said, it's down to the paint. It's possible you're just unlucky, especially after your success with the white. A friend of mine had to wait 3 weeks for a Sea Blue Gloss Corsair....he was using Xtracolour enamel thinned with lacquer.