[MF3000]

Hello Chemical Forums - I joined up just to ask this question 

A little bit of background first, in terms of chemistry, I have completed upto 7th form (that is, final year of high school) chemistry, but I am a history and politics student in university... (ala Arts). So I will be lacking tremendous amount of chemistry terminology, but use those terms if it helps to answer the following question.

Over at 40k Online, one of the members found out a method of mixing acrylic paint with the Scottish drink, Irn Bru. http://www.40konline.com/mos/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=861&topic=140225.0
Here is also a link about Irn Bru:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irn_Bru


To quote from the post, and highlight on my own;

Stage 4. 2nd Shade - blood red.
Now mix Irn Bru into blood red. You should notice a little fizzing, once this has died down the chemical reaction has worked, you will now notice when you paint it on an increased vibrancy, and a slight opaqueness which aids blending, but heres the clever part, it still covers dark colours really well, this is due to the artificial colouring in the Irn Bru!

Here is another example from a different poster;

Glad to see I am not the only one who uses soda for painting purposes. Have you ever tried using Coca-Cola as a substitute for vallejo smoke? I used it in a pinch when I ran out of smoke, works wonders! You have to mix the coke with a  bit of scorched brown for best results.

Another quote;

I agree, I curious to why it would help the coverage. Maybe the carbonation works to distribute the pigment more evenly. More investigation is needed...anyone take chemistry? I flunked.

So several questions came to mind from this experiment...
1. Is this a phenomena that occur only from carbonated drinks?
2. If so, what are the chemical processes in action here?
3. In other words, what is it about carbonated drinks, or Irn Bru and Coca Cola, that makes paint, some how 'more vibrant'? Is it as the last quote suggest, even distribution of pigment in the paint? If so, what kind of chemical reaction is this?

Another set of questions based on the second effect of mixing acrylic paint with Irn Bru;
Red is usually a real pain in the butt of a paint to go over any other colour, even white. But black is especially annoying (as the red paint simply gets either too thick or too thin; ruining the surface detail). But from what I gather, by mixing Irn Bru and paint, you could potentially get a better coverage (i.e. instead of 4-5 coats of red paint on black primer; 1-2 coats of redpaint/irnbru on black primer).
1. Does the colouring in the drink simply give the impression that pigment in the paint has increased in number? Therefore getting a better coverage?
2. How does this work? (okay, huge question that deals with paint pigment nature as well as the actual chemical processes involved... skip if you feel daunted by it, but go for gold if you feel appropriate)

Like said, I'm not a chemistry student, and have never really been the best of students in high school. But this is an interesting phenomena that I really want to 'understand' and have dug up my old old old books for answers, without much result.

Any help would be great. Just errr watch out for the PM's and quick replies about 'what does that mean?'... 

Cheers

sj

p.s. I forgot to mention; I will be holding my less than analytical experiments with various soda/carbonated drinks and different paints; the typical paint that people use are from Vallejo or Citadel (ala the 'GW paints') and also recently people have been using P3 (from Privateer Press) paint.

[MF3000]

Well I did some experimenting with Creaming Soda, from the Golden Circle range.

It wasn't much of a success.




As you can see when the paint and the soda mixed, it diluted the paint solution... rather than making it anything suitable for painting (I acutally didn't add water to it at all... it just became so runny...

sj

[MF3000]

Bargh! One more update.

I just realized that it could indeed be the colouration of the drinks affecting the pigment of the paints...

The Cream Soda is yellow-green; I've been mixing it furiously with Red to get that slightly 'orangey', 'carrot colour' colour.

This was not my intention of course, I was gunning for a better coat of red rather than diluted orange.

So, idea stuck 1am in the morning, got out of bed and started experimenting with the yellow paint. And voila. After 1-2 coats, over the black-brown-orange mush you see above, the yellow covered it very well.

The Yellow paint did indeed become 'thicker' in terms of pigment.

Now I donno the chemistry behind this phenomena.

Is it pigments multiplying (is that even possible?) or is the sugar making the whole solution syrupy, therefore 'sticks' to the surface more, rather than running into the recesses... I just don't know, but from the ONE EXPERIMENT I've done, colour of the drink = colour of the paint will be 'advantaged'.

What is the nature of the 'advantage'? other than getting a better single coat, I haven't got a clue as to why this happens.

I'll be trying Cola and Soda Water and Power Horse possibly later on today, after I get some sleep lol.

sj

[billnotgatez]

I do not know the answer to your question but I do enjoy your experiments.

[MF3000]

Sweet! thanks for that bill

I played around with the new creaming-yellow and it made Sunburst yellow kind of... greenish yellow - but it might have been some black ink left on the model, not sure. But either way, yellow does apply pretty 'thickly' and get good coverage only after 1-2 coats. You just have to be more careful then me when mixing paint; because I'm pretty sure there is a reason the colour turned out so dark.



Here's a dramatic photo lol.

I'm mottle painting it on purpose (I know it's the not the best way to show off how well it covers the entire model, but I want these guys to be renegade marines, so imagine uncared for paints and chipped bits and exposed metals to be added later on - the aim for these paints are to provide decent base coats, not the detail and stuff like that on top).

You can see on his left shin pad streaks of solid yellow? Yeah well, that was only after 2 coats of creaming-yellow on the black-orange beast that you can see in my other post above.

I think, the solution is too runny at the moment to get the even coverage across the whole model i.e. it will still 'pool' towards the recesses or the random spots on the model, but, this is more to do with me lacking patience to mix the solution to the 'ideal' mix. I'm just experimenting as it comes along.

Anyways, today will hopefuly be Power Horse, the energy drink (maybe it's the guana or something that might brighten things up a bit) but first, I feel fat and lazy, time for a run around the block.

sj

[MF3000]

Okay so these results MAY be the hypothesis buster (that there is something else other than colouring that is affecting the paints - i.e. a chemical reaction that isn't related to the colouring chemicals)

Coca Cola - Original vs Blood Red = Coca Red



Being a certainly darker and 'reddish' drink than the Creaming Soda - which was greenish-yellow - the first coat of red was MUCH more 'successful' in that it covered all the black areas without too much of the blacks showing underneath. Also there's less 'pooling' of paint across the smoother surfaces. Which is a definite bonus for painters since, even diluting the paint with water with the wrong ratio (i.e. too much water) would result in the pigments clumping together with a tonnage of clear dilute areas.

In any case, Coca Cola beats the Creaming Soda in several areas;
1. the paint was very 'stable' - no pigment haywire syndrome and dissipating all over the place
2. the paint was thinned but it was not diluted in consitency (perhaps due to the darkening/addition of the colouring?)
3. the paint did not end up drying as a sticky layer like the Creaming Soda

Some areas which it failed to serve as the most ideal paint additive;
1. it still makes your miniatures smell like coca cola
2. unlike the Creaming Yellow, Coca Red dried up faster. (hmmm interesting) - this is not a serious defect as some people prefer their paint to dry faster; however, some people may want to use wet layering or blending techniques which requires the paint to stay wet as long as possible... but in that case, you'll be having to add another solution to keep the paint wet longer anyway, so this is no BIG defect.

Chemistry Questions still left unanswered and more added;
1. What on earth is going on whenever I add a soda drink to paint?
2. Why did the Creaming Soda act the way it did with pigments separating all over the place? (Is it like the fact that the carbonated water can be used for removing stains? - and I'm sure this is as generic as it gets in terms of chemistry stuff)
3. Why did Coca Cola then work better? Was it really the colouring?


I think ultimately colouring is the key here... but it tends to work well for other colours too...

So maybe the colouring does help out the colour it is based on (Coca cola + Red) (Creaming Soda + Yellow) ... but when it comes to adding other colours, it only works as a non-water based diluting agent?

But that still doesnt' explain how with other colours the paint managed to keep a better 'coverage' - even blue was used with creaming soda;

Results (Blue + Creaming Soda);
Green was not the resulting colour - it stayed blue
Paint was much easier to work with (I think this may be psychological; since paint brushes are easy to ruin with additives, I'm being more careful with how much paint and how much 'soda' I NEEDED ... where as with water, it was kind of dip-and-wipe to get the amount of water I WANTED).
In anycase, much better consistency (but compared with water it wasn't a JUMP of an advantage, it was just able to cover much better.)

Resulting hypothesis;
colouring adds more pigments no matter what to the colour - therefore adding to consistency

I'll keep posting with updates and such; if you feel like it, just say something. (like 'oh you're so stupid with this, this isn't even a chemistry experiment you twat!' *throws pippet*). But you know, be nice. Try to keep it 'chemical' -_-

sj

[billnotgatez]

Your experiments are interesting. I do have some comments.

Who said smelling like CocaCola was not ideal
I wonder if PepsiCola would do better.

I know that doing the figures is nifty, but maybe test tiles would be better. When doing pottery to test glazes we use vertical tiles. The tiles are basically textured tile on a stand and we paint several stripes on them. Sometimes we paint several differently and compare them side-by-side.  You just have to make them out of plastic.

Most odors dissipate over time but heating them slightly will speed up the process. Note that plastic should not be over heated.

I thought that maybe dye in the beverage would have more influence, but it looks like that is not always true based on your findings. Of course there are so many variables such as sugar content, phosphoric acid content, carbonic acid content, and water content. So figuring out what works would be difficult. I will talk about experimental method in a minute. In any case, there are many tales about CocaCola and what it can do. This includes removing rust etc.

Experimental method is where you try to hold parameters constant and vary one parameter. Then you make measurements. There is a whole lot more to doing the scientific method. In any case I would not discourage what you are doing. It is just that it will be considered anecdotal.

By the way you might have an admin move this to citizen chemist board if you think you will get more responses.

Good luck

[P]

QUOTE:"Chemistry Questions still left unanswered and more added;
1. What on earth is going on whenever I add a soda drink to paint?
2. Why did the Creaming Soda act the way it did with pigments separating all over the place? (Is it like the fact that the carbonated water can be used for removing stains? - and I'm sure this is as generic as it gets in terms of chemistry stuff)
3. Why did Coca Cola then work better? Was it really the colouring?"

OK - I don't know exactly - but here is what I reckon!
1. Most of these water based paints have pH between 7 and 8.5.  The fizzy drinks (especially the coke) have an acidic pH (3-4?). 
2.The pigment in the paint is suspended in a water base with the use of dispersing agents.  The chemistry here I believe is 'Physical Chemistry' not actual reactions. The acidity of the drink (and maybe a bit of the fizz) 'breaks' the suspension/emulsion causing the pigment to 'clump' or 'flocculate' (thus the globules of colour and the areas of less intense colour).   
3. Coke will work better because it is more acidic than the other fizzy drinks - pH is something like 2.5 to 3 I think!

Back to 2. - I don't think the stain removing idea is necessarily correct as the effect you are seeing is a 'breaking' of the suspension rather than a chemical reaction.

.  This is my GUESS and is SPECULATION ONLY based on what I know about waterbased paints.


By the way  -  the pee pee cream soda effect would be great for plague marines!  I think I might give it a try!  Thanks!

[MF3000]

Thanks for the reply Bill;

I'm looking for suitable plastic material to test the paints (going for flat plastic sheets that are 'hard plastic' like the figures we use - unlike 'soft plastic' that the non-GW hobby uses); since most often then not, that's what we are used the paint on.

Buuuuuut... I only realised after I started using up some of the drinks and such; so for now, I'm going to finish the 'anecdotal' experiment; before cracking onto the ... experimental method - given the time lol.

Thanks for the information on getting rid of the odour. I will try it when I get proper stuff sorted. And I'll probably do a better try at getting a 'stable' test situation. I'm starting to remember what we used to do back in school. With note taking and having that exact consistant chemicals and solutions.

I did not see the citizen board lol. DOH.

Thanks again for the input!

@ P

Hey mate; thanks for your input too

I appreciate the answers you've provided. Cheers for that. I think you've put words to what I was only theorising in my head.

Yeah, initially the creaming yellow was meant to be for a plague marine, but for now I'm just screwing around with 'paint chemistry', so the actual marines bear no fluff relations (therefore, out of context of the 'official' storylines the miniatures are based on - fluff means history in the hobby).

I'm already half way through the SodaWater trial but it seems to so far only work exactly like the water we normally use. Some questions that brings up to my mind at this result;
1. it has no colouring (it's clear) - and it has managed to do no real impact on the paint itself.
2. this rules out the idea that carbonic acid content IMO (i.e. based on no chemistry background lol); and points to colouring/dye effect.
3. when applying the paint however, the consistency of the paint is... a LITTLE thicker. On the label of the drink, SodaWater has no sugar... but I thought maybe sugar thickened things up a little. So that goes out the window too... - maybe this is a point that doesn't really need querying into.

Anyways, cheers for the input man. Go for gold on experimenting with the soda drinks;
Oh, so far coca cola has been the most easiest to work with. The smell lingers for a bit, but after a good coat of sealer of any kind will probably take that away.

Here's the final version of the Creaming Soda and the Coca Cola test subjects;
Although the models have been painted using only paint and chemical 'x' (ooOOoo), I'm looking mainly at their effect on the primary colours; and even then with the pigment-less colours, yellow and red (even though GW paints use fillers for their red-yellow colour range, they are still the most pain in the butt colours to get a decent first coat).



Creaming Soda - yellow as primary colour test subject (purposely mottled - I will do flat yellow later on)
CocaCola - red as primary colour test subject (that's 2 coats only over black! 1:1 ratio of paint and cola)

sj

[MF3000]

Bargh! Apparently the Irn Bru experiment was a hoax!

!!! *insert profanities* !!!

With this new piece of information I'm going to be putting off the 'scientific' experiment until my longer holidays come up - I only get 2 weeks off now, and I want to go out and do crazy stuff (cos... that should be done sometime in your life time @_@ )

Anywho... if you're keen to keep it going, then do post stuff; if not, then... we'll leave it to the fate of the internet forum gods, otherwise known as admins and mods.

Cheers

sj