*Paint/Gloss Finish Testing*

[TransAmMike]

Sounds good Bob.    I've used Car Pro and Griot's Garage products the last couple years.

[Dave G.]

25 minutes ago, Zippi said:

Dave,  That Tamiya acrylic black looks pretty sharp.  What gloss are you going with over that black?  The Paasche H is what I use with the same tip.  Now you got me to thinking about the Tamiay arcylic paint.  Haha....  

No clear, not needed. Since that photo I lightly buffed them. Then I did the body in Washington Blue lacquer from MCW ( this thing is being done bone stock). That I clear coated with Tamiya X-22 against my wishes to not need clear because I really wasn't all that impressed with the blue. I should have mixed my own from Tamiya. I still have more buffing to do on the body. But my wife died in the middle of all this so now it's sitting in the box till things settle down. Actually I had a good day after her death Dec 20th and got that blue on and the clear a day or two later now that I think about it. It's been sitting in the box since Feb sometime. The emotion thing is complicated, there is more than the death involved but not for open information in a forum lol. I'll get back to this model about when summer heat hits and I'm sitting in ac, assuming all goes as it looks like it may be going in my life...

[Zippi]

13 minutes ago, Dave G. said:

No clear, not needed. Since that photo I lightly buffed them. Then I did the body in Washington Blue lacquer from MCW ( this thing is being done bone stock). That I clear coated with Tamiya X-22 against my wishes to not need clear because I really wasn't all that impressed with the blue. I should have mixed my own from Tamiya. I still have more buffing to do on the body. But my wife died in the middle of all this so now it's sitting in the box till things settle down. Actually I had a good day after her death Dec 20th and got that blue on and the clear a day or two later now that I think about it. It's been sitting in the box since Feb sometime. The emotion thing is complicated, there is more than the death involved but not for open information in a forum lol. I'll get back to this model about when summer heat hits and I'm sitting in ac, assuming all goes as it looks like it may be going in my life...

Dave, sorry to hear about your wife.  The color looks great and you'll get things sorted out.

[Dave G.]

6 minutes ago, Zippi said:

Dave, sorry to hear about your wife.  The color looks great and you'll get things sorted out.

Ya thanks ! I have a 1/16 Mercer that she actually gave to me when we were first married nearly 47 years ago. That is literally all painted and ready for assembly. She dragged it out of the crawl space herself about a year and a half ago ( I thought it was long gone, she said oh no I have it stashed in there). But anyway that paint came out awesome right from the gun ( Model Master enamel). It looks great and I might just build that one up first because of the memory attached to it. Hah, that's in the box too but at least the paint is all done, including metalizer work and stuff.

[Zippi]

5 hours ago, Dave G. said:

You mentioned not being ready to tackle black. These are my 1/16 Model A fenders not buffed or clear coated. It's  5 coats of Tamiya X4 black acrylic thinned with denatured alcohol about 50/50, shot with a Paasche H and medium tip. The fenders were dry in that shot and it's just from my camera phone.  The running boards aren't a mistake they are to be flat black. By the way I just hand held them over the open trash bag in the kitchen, then popped them into the dehydrator. I don't stress out how I go about this stuff..

Dave, I looked up the black paint you used and I'm seeing the Tamiya X4 as a blue acrylic???

[Dave G.]

9 hours ago, Zippi said:

Dave, I looked up the black paint you used and I'm seeing the Tamiya X4 as a blue acrylic???

Sorry, no glasses on lol ! It's X-1 and I should know that without glasses anyway.

[Zippi]

1 hour ago, Dave G. said:

Sorry, no glasses on lol ! It's X-1 and I should know that without glasses anyway.

Thanks man.  "Brain Fart".....I get them all the time ☺

[Zippi]

Ok....did a little testing this morning.  I had 3 spoons primed (rattle can) from yesterday with Rust-Oleum flat gray primer.  Here is the 3 test I performed.  I took 2 pics of the spoons after paint only inside the garage and outside in the sun.  The same with the paint-gloss pics.  Tell me what you fellows think about which finish coat looks the best.  I'm pretty sure I know which one I'm going to use.  Note: The last 2 pics are with the finish coat.

   

1) Spoons primed with 1 coat of Rust-Oleum 2X Ultra flat gray primer and sat for 24 hrs.    

2) I thinned the Anita's Glossy Red paint with Windex 50/50 and mixed.

3) I airbrushed all 3 spoons with 2 light coats then 2 medium coats letting it flash between coats an let the parts set for 30 min covered with a plastic tub.  

4) The last 3 coats were heavy to make sure I was getting enough paint on the spoons.  

5) I let the parts set for 30 min and airbrushed one spoon with Rust-Oleum 2X Gloss Clear, one spoon with Tamiya Clear, and the 3rd spoon with Pledge Revive it.  Each spoon was sprayed with 3 medium/heavy coats with a flash time of 2 min between coats.

6) 20 psi while airbrushing the paint and 18 psi when airbrushing the Pledge and Tamiya Clear.

7) The Pledge was not thinned for airbrushing but the Tamiya Clear was thinned with lacquer thinner 50/50.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Zippi

[Zippi]

Update.  I was initially thinking the painted spoon with the Rust-Oleum Gloss had the least shine so I thought, what the hell, it's been about 20 min so lets shoot it reallllllllly heavy and see what happens.  Man oh man does it now look better than the other 2 plus it can still be wet sanded but that's something I'm still experimenting with.  If this looks as good tomorrow I think that's my huckleberry.  These 2 pics were taken about 5 min after they where sprayed. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Zippi

[peteski]

I'm glad that you tried it. We all kept telling you - no misting-on the paint - you need to lay it on heavy to allow the liquid paint to spread out and level itself.  Like I said, I don't sand/wax/polish my paint jobs.  They are glossy enough.  So many modelers don't seem to understand that, and end up with orange-peel finishes.  But you you also have to be mindful that if you go overboard on the heavy coat, you risk runs.  Doing it just right is something you'll learn with experience.

Edited April 27, 2021 by peteski

[AMT68]

1 hour ago, peteski said:

Like I said, I don't sand/wax/polish my paint jobs

Interesting. I've had better success laying down smoother topcoats by not misting the clear on the final coats. I've yet to have a finish level perfectly without any orange peel that didn't require wet sanding or polishing. So I'm thinking I still haven't perfected laying down enough but not too much clear. 

This topic has been an informative read. 

[peteski]

5 hours ago, AMT68 said:

Interesting. I've had better success laying down smoother topcoats by not misting the clear on the final coats.

If "by not misting" you mean "lay it on heavy and wet", then yes.  When the paint lands on the model surface partially-dry (when misting), it doesn't have a chance to flow and smoothly level out.

[Dave G.]

You can do the same with the Tamiya clear.Put down a moderate coat and two progressively heavier coats, let that flash then lay on two good full wet coats that will pop the shine. Heat setting that I find to increase the gloss. Same with their clear colors, in fact maybe even more so with the clear colors ( they really like to shine after 15 minutes in the dehydrator at 108f). Then just buff it up if there is a slight haze when dry. I rarely sand the Tamiya clear but my desires may be different than yours. The thing about Tamiya acrylic is it actually is a hybrid acrylic/lacquer,not to be confused with solvent based automotive acrylic lacquer which I am not at all a fan of on plastic models. Even their solid colors perform well.

I've never polished Model Master enamel, course that's gone now but it used to level out like glass. The regular little Testors bottles aren't bad but Model Master to me was a cut above those. Both alkyd enamel I believe.

Also as long as there is enough clear coat on the surface to not rub through, any of those first samples you posted should polish up fine.

Congrats on finding the key with the Rustoleum. It's probably going to mute out slightly overnight but it will polish right back up and that will last..

Edited April 27, 2021 by Dave G.

[Zippi]

I got my test body painted earlier and I tried to repeat the process that I used yesterday on the spoons.  Today was probably not the most ideal day to be airbrushing as the winds were gusting 20-30 mph.  I stood at the back door of my garage spraying when the wind would let down.  It came out better than I thought it would and nothing blew onto the paint.  The paint has just a little orange peel but nothing really bad.  I'll let this set for a couple hrs and then shoot the Rust-Oleum Gloss.  I also polished the spoon I cleared yesterday.  It's a little darker than yesterday and looks like it may have lost a little of the wet look but still not to bad.  Like my granddaddy use to say....hope for the best and expect the worst.  

[Zippi]

Ok I got 4 good coats of the Rust-Oleum Gloss sprayed on the test body.  The paint has some orange peel so once the Gloss cures we'll see if wet sanding with help it out any.  It looks a little on the rough side.  These pics were taken about 5 min after it was sprayed.  I don't know.....I may have to start over and pick a day that's not so windy.    

Edited April 27, 2021 by Zippi

[Dave G.]

Too much work for me to salvage that, it would be in the purple pond right now.

[Zippi]

Yeah....I think the wind was a little much today and it forced me to spray it to heavy.  Hey, good experience for me.

[TransAmMike]

2 hours ago, Zippi said:

Yeah....I think the wind was a little much today and it forced me to spray it to heavy.  Hey, good experience for me.

Bob, you just have got to figure a way to paint in your cool garage. Cover up the pickup Buddy or pull her outside while you paint.

[Zippi]

3 minutes ago, TransAmMike said:

Bob, you just have got to figure a way to paint in your cool garage. Cover up the pickup Buddy or pull her outside while you paint.

Yeah I'm going to have to figure something out.  Going after some isopropyl alcohol tomorrow to strip the paint t off and start over.

[TransAmMike]

5 hours ago, Dave G. said:

Too much work for me to salvage that, it would be in the purple pond right now.

Like Dave G said,  The "purple pond" method may be better.  Maybe someone else on here can elaborate better than I.

[Tim08]

I used the turtle wax clean cut rubbing compound on the camaro body I'm working on right now...looked a little like that... Takes a little elbow grease to rub it out, but it looks pretty good.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Tim08

[Zippi]

8 hours ago, Tim08 said:

I used the turtle wax clean cut rubbing compound on the camaro body I'm working on right now...looked a little like that... Takes a little elbow grease to rub it out, but it looks pretty good.

I'm going to try and wet sand a few area's this morning with 2000 thru 12000 and see what happens.  If it doesn't turn out decent it's going for a bath.  Keep in mind fellows that this is a test body so I'm trying different things to see what happens.  This way I'll know what NOT to do next time.   I'm stripping the body not matter what becasuse I didn't sand all the mold lines out and this is not the color I want for the 65 Impala anyway.

[Rick L]

Try putting that spray can into a hot water bath before painting. It may lay down a little smoother. 

[Dave G.]

4 hours ago, Zippi said:

I'm going to try and wet sand a few area's this morning with 2000 thru 12000 and see what happens.  If it doesn't turn out decent it's going for a bath.  Keep in mind fellows that this is a test body so I'm trying different things to see what happens.  This way I'll know what NOT to do next time.   I'm stripping the body not matter what becasuse I didn't sand all the mold lines out and this is not the color I want for the 65 Impala anyway.

Another thing you could try since you're scuffing and experimenting anyway, is scuff it smooth then squirt on another couple of wet coats. Let dry and buff it up. You only need to go to 3500 or so to try that, least in in my experience anyway..

[Zippi]

I will try that next time Rick.  Ok fellows, I spent about 10 min this morning wet sanding the top of the test body with 1000, 2000, 4000, 6000, 12000.  After that I used Novus 3 Heavy Scratch Remover then Novus 2 Fine Scatch Remover, and I finished up with Meguiar's Liquid Wax.  I gotta say, it took out 95% of the orange peel and it looks pretty good.  Now I'm not saying that it's perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than what is was.  So....I guess the moral of the story is if you paint your model and you get a lot of orange peel all is not lost.  At least for me.  I have 2 pics that clearly show the before & after results.  Let me hear the comments on the process I used fellows. 

I also bought a couple bottles of the Isopropyl Alcohol to strip the body once I'm finished testing.  I looked at the purple stuff but what I read said it smelled pretty bad so I opted not to use it.  If the wife gets a sniff of something bad in the garage she will crack down on me ☺  

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Zippi