Dave G.

I clean my mixing bottles as I go, each time I paint. For enamel I use lacquer thinner and it just swishes right out and or wipes off. If you let em sit and get caked up with paint it might take more work. But I don't do that personally.

If the orange peel was in the base coats no amount of sanding will leave the clear coat in tact. You have to sand to the bottom of the orange peel to level the finish which leaves basically no clear coat and gets you mighty close to plastic and all the easier to wear through. You need to work on your thinning, thinner type, air pressures and get your coats of paint to self level.

Looking good ! Probably only you know where you sanded through. But the overall representation to me looks great, at least in the photo.

Model Master Aluminum Plate Matalizer . Has to be sealed with their Matalizer seal coat though or other clear. Similar choice to Snakes but it's a buffing metalizer, just don't buff it buff the clear.. It goes down silky smooth, the only trick is swirl your airbrush ( I airbrush it) to keep the metallic suspended.

This thread brings about a very old memory. Years ago when I was building a lot of short track modified and class A coupes and sedans ( 40 fords, 36 Fords cut down using flathead or small block engines etc. and long before any kits of these came out) I used slot car tires. We had a commercial slot car track and local hobby shop that supported it with tires of many sizes. Anyway, those looked better than any kit tires I ever found even though there was no lettering. Might not work on a muscle car but it worked great for circle track cars. They actually had treaded tires too, I put a Model A sedan street rod on the slot car track and used the chrome wheels from a kit and treaded slot car tires on the back, it looked awesome going around the track.

Ya I use the metal color cup a lot on the H and also on my Badger 200 for painting all the smaller parts and also when test spraying different paints and blends etc. I use glass jars, both the Badger and Paasche came with those and I use them when shooting larger areas. Both sets came with a jar and siphon cap plus a jar with solid cap. Besides those I have a Badger mixing jar set. I think it's six jars with solid caps and three pipettes. I mix my paint in those often. They are for mixing or storing paint only because they are smaller than the spray jar set with a different cap size, but very handy non the less. I don't think I could really like the plastic jar sets personally.

I would try adding a little retarder first. If that alone doesn't work for you, then just have a Qtip/cotton bud handy with a little alcohol or thinner in a cup . Dip the Qtip in the thinner and wipe the tip of your airbrush off if it dries on you. As I mentioned already, I have retarder in my thinner blend and haven't had any tip dry issues and MM is one of several acrylic paints I use. Don't over think it, just clean the tip if paint dries on there. Another thing I do sometimes is have a hair dryer handy and heat set the freshly sprayed paint. You can usually flash dry it off in a minute or two with acrylic paints and move on to a second coat shortly there after.

My own thinner I make up has Liquitex retarder in it and this really slows down the tip dry issue. I don't know about leaving the airbrush sitting for ten minutes but it's good for three or four minutes with the retarder in there. Just to clarify , this is not a Passche H thing but any airbrush will do this with most acrylic paints that have either no flow aid or no retarder in them.. But with the H if the nozzle does get tip dry what I do is completely close the needle and gently wipe off the tip with a little alcohol or acrylic cleaner, then open the needle wide give it a shot or two and reset to my operating setting. By closing the needle the needle protrudes out the tip breaking the clog up and the alcohol melts the clog up. Also with the Passche H and Model Master I shoot more like 23psi. there is a sweet spot you will find someplace between 20 and 25 psi.I don't like the working pressure with the H to fall under 20psi when using bottles on it, sometimes with the metal color cup I might let it drop a bit more. But I also don't thin MM paint 50/50.

Also when decanting from a spray can for airbrushing , you need to let the paint sit and out gas for a few minutes. The propellant once out of the can acts different than spraying from the can, you can sometimes see the paint bubbling in your paint cup. I've even had to re-thin paint I've decanted. But ya know, Testors last I knew sprayed great from the can directly so why bother decanting really. There are plenty of airbrush paints to use.

Ya, there is another shot there at that page I linked to looking down on the wagon and hardtop side by side and the wagon looks to have tan seats. Again not very sharp though.

In an images search I did the wagon looked to have black inner door panels. But it wasn't a sharp photo. Here is a link to the page I was at with a bunch of Don's cars at it. https://www.google.com/search?q=dyno+don's+mercury+wagon&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0ipbbhuLiAhUQr1kKHe6-Af8Q_AUIESgC&biw=1252&bih=579#imgrc=7qRxpQuE6Fl93M:

I see, thanks.

Is this a quiz, It's sitting in a body shell is that not the match to the under body ?

Man does that look familiar ! I drove around, traveled towing a camper, plowed snow for the town, hauled wood, hauled coal, rebuilt it twice but practically lived in one of those cabs for 30 years. Finally relegated it to my driveway snow plow and the cab caved in with the throttle stuck to the floor one day and buried the thing in a snow bank to kill it. Junked it the next summer but tons of memories attached to it. G20 4x4 step side. Unbelievable tank, go anywhere do anything except ride smooth. I put in a 350 with a mild towing cam to haul the camper, making many many trips to Northern Maine fly fishing in that truck.

Many many moons ago I won second place in my class in a contest with an AMT 49 ford I upholstered the interior of with felt, floss and corduroy. I think I used felt on the headliner and floss on the floor, corduroy seats ( it was back around 1962 or so, I would have been 12 at that rate). Today they have micro floss, you might be able to work up a mohair look with some of that. Great for anyone who wants to try it but not me, done with those kinds of activity. These days I paint my interiors, I really like Liquitex soft body artists acrylic paints with a little Liquitex satin varnish added to them for the interiors sheen. It just gives a good look imo and I do the headliner in the same color as the seats usually or just satin black or grey sometimes.

If I'd have known they made the stuff 50 years ago I might have used it too.

Liquitex gloss gives a pretty decent look too, just buff it up after a few days with some Formula 1 or some such product ( usually two to three applications gives a really nice natural looking shine). The Tamiya I'm speaking of is their clear acrylic, it can be thinned with Tamiya acrylic thinner, doesn't have to be lacquer thinner. There is no more Future fwiw, if you want that then look for Pledge Floor Care. 18-20 psi shoots it straight from the bottle, no thinning ( I use a .5 needle in one brush and .7 in the other, same for all the clears).

In the Future type products, Pledge Floor Care is the latest iteration and pretty good. Same deal as Future, spray it straight from the bottle, self leveling, buff it in a few days if desired. I shot the Tamiya acrylic test yesterday as the above post stated I was going to do and that stuff lays down beautiful and super glossy, it's a very clear gloss and a notch above Pledge imo ( pretty much needs no buffing at least to my taste).. I had hoped it would spray and result in a finish as nice as their clear colors and that seems to be the case. I thin those paints with lacquer thinner.

Hah ! But 3661 was the best gun cleaner going, it even rinsed the gun after an Imron paint job lol ! I started doling out my thinners by pipettes, no more just splashing the stuff all over the place. I used to fill the color cup with thinner, swish spray, dump it out, refill, repeat. Now its a little stream from the pipette. Gotta move into the new century, I'm from the century of wasting things..

If you're going to spray anything automotive then put on a respirator ( not just a dust mask but an actual charcoal cartridge respirator). I'm going to spray some Tamiya acrylic clear today and see how I like it. I love their clear colors, hoping the clear clear is as good as those. For most acrylics I wear a dust mask but not for solvent based paints.

We used to go through 3661 medium dry thinner by the 5 gal can delivered by the automotive paint supply warehouse to commercial accounts only, over 35 years of painting 1/1automotive and commercial fleets, I can't begin to say how many cans. Here in southern Ma I keep mineral spirits and Kleen Strip lacquer thinner and a can of Xylene to add in when I want to slow it down a little bit and those products satisfy my needs.. Here the Kleen Strip Paint Thinner has gone green so to speak, it's garbage but for now at least the lacquer thinner is ok. And the Xylene is ok ( plus the can I have will last me the rest of my days). And the mineral spirits is ok, again thus far. I'm starting to hear rumblings about synthetic lacquer thinner. Here, thus far, Napa stores still sell automotive lacquer thinner, just at inflated prices ( Martin Senior brand).

You want a filter to catch the heavy particles before going through the fan or the fan will get coated more and more till it becomes ineffective. You don't need the fine mesh expensive filters but the more open weave , as was mentioned you can buy a roll and cut it to fit even. But they also sell the rectangular ones, like a 5 pack for $8 or something like that. I think the mesh is probably fiberglass strands, mine are green, some are blue.

But it doesn't smell or clean parts like ( the same as) 100% acetone does. Just sayin.

I could see that working really well actually. We don't have it locally, I should maybe order some in. But hardware store thinner has worked well too so far.

Alcohol will clean the airbrush and you can thin Tamiya with their acrylic thinner vs lacquer thinner. I make my own thinner actually and it works fine in Tamiya paints. Lacquer thinner in the gloss paints will dry to a bit harder surface, maybe a slight bit glossier. I personally wouldn't recommend thinning with plain water. My thinner is 60% distilled water, 40% ipa 91, then Liquitex retarder according to the season I'm painting in ( generally in a 3oz blend I use between 6 and 10 drops in this thinner blend). Most acrylics spray quite nice with this mix and next to no tip dry and good flow out.. That includes Tamiya and Model Master acrylics and Apple Barrel and FolkArt craft paints too. That said, to spray Tamiya thinned with lacquer thinner really doesn't smell all that bad and doesn't linger assuming using a booth. It's nothing like spraying lacquer paints in that regard but you get similar results. It's really nice paint thinned either way though..