While at this year's National Contest and Convention, Jeff Johnston of MMD-Squadron was kind enough to provide several sample sizes of this new product. As implied in the name, the thinner is designed to work with all brands and types of enamel paints. While my paint collection isn't extensive enough to prove this, I did try the product with several brands of paint (Testor's traditional ¼ oz bottle, their 1 oz Model Master, and an old Humbrol tin). The instructions state to mix a 3 part paint/2 part thinner ratio for gloss colors, and 3/1 for flats. I tried these ratios for airbrushing and found them to work great. I typically use Testor's Lacquer Thinner (black can) for much of my enamel and lacquer spraying. The Squadron product dries a little slower, which may help to level out the paint layers a bit more – or the airbrush gods were smiling on me the day I tried it out. Who can say <grin>.

When hand painting, I would suggest going a little lighter on the thinner, working up to a ratio that works for you – 3/2 gloss and 3/1 flat both gave me a few coverage issues so I dropped back a little bit on the thinner.

While specific ingredients aren't listed with the exception of “petroleum distillates”, there's an aroma of mineral spirits, at least according to my calibrated sniffer. The thinner works really well as an airbrush and brush cleaner, although you may want to save this product for thinning and go with a less expensive solvent for those purposes.

The thinner is also available in a 2 oz. glass bottle, MSRP is $3.95 for that size. Highly recommended! Our thanks go to Jeff at MMD-Squadron for supplying the review samples.