Buyer beware

[Chinacar]

This week I just shot 18 year old TESTORS MODEL MASTER British racing green Enamel, thinned down with Tamiya Lacquer Thinner. Went on like glass and the finish stayed high gloss. I don't think it has much to do with this topic, but I'm really proud of myself ?

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, Chinacar said:

This week I just shot 18 year old TESTORS MODEL MASTER British racing green Enamel, thinned down with Tamiya Lacquer Thinner. Went on like glass and the finish stayed high gloss. I don't think it has much to do with this topic, but I'm really proud of myself ?

Congrats, and thanks for the heads-up. 

Somebody else may have tried that combo, but it's the first I've heard of it.

The old standard advice was "cheap hardware store lacquer thinner", and that left a lot of room for unknowns and variability.

[mikemodeler]

6 hours ago, Chinacar said:

This week I just shot 18 year old TESTORS MODEL MASTER British racing green Enamel, thinned down with Tamiya Lacquer Thinner. Went on like glass and the finish stayed high gloss. I don't think it has much to do with this topic, but I'm really proud of myself ?

Donn Yost (RIP) was a big believer in using Testors enamels and hardware store lacquer thinner to get high gloss finishes. He produced a couple of DVDs showing how to do so.

[bluestringer]

I've taken the little bottles of Testors gloss enamel, poured the contents into a 1oz. bottle, then filled the testors with walmart lacquer thinner, shake well, pour that into the 1oz. bottle with the paint, shake well. It produces a nice gloss finish.

[StevenGuthmiller]

4 hours ago, bluestringer said:

I've taken the little bottles of Testors gloss enamel, poured the contents into a 1oz. bottle, then filled the testors with walmart lacquer thinner, shake well, pour that into the 1oz. bottle with the paint, shake well. It produces a nice gloss finish.

You can save yourself a bunch of money in some instances by using these instead of the little Testors bottles of enamel.

Pretty much exactly the same stuff for a fraction of the price.

 

 

 

 

Steve

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

You can save yourself a bunch of money in some instances by using these instead of the little Testors bottles of enamel.

Pretty much exactly the same stuff for a fraction of the price.

Makes sense if you want to paint 200 models the same color.   

[StevenGuthmiller]

9 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Makes sense if you want to paint 200 models the same color.   

I only buy the colors that I use frequently for chassis, etc.

Gloss black, flat black, flat white, etc.

I don’t use these paints for bodies.

I’m not a masochist! ?

But, if it’s your thing, you could certainly buy the basic colors, ie, red, yellow, blue, etc, and mix any color you would like.

 

 

 

Steve

[Mattblack]

On 8/29/2024 at 11:47 AM, bobss396 said:

I dunno... the post on a spilled bottle of liquid glue has gone the same route...

I'm intrigued... do you have link?

[bobss396]

3 hours ago, Mattblack said:

I'm intrigued... do you have link?

 

[customline]

You people are all crazy ?

[Pierre Rivard]

On 8/27/2024 at 10:47 PM, NOBLNG said:

There you go Steve! Well put without a hint of condemnation.? I totally agree with the positive attributes of an airbrush…but if someone decides for whatever reason that they don’t want one, that’s perfectly okay too. There is always brush painting as a last resort.?

So I guess brush painting my models puts me at the bottom of the food chain. Just for fun let's flip this argument on it's head. Doesn't make sense using a can as it limits you so much with what you can do. But an airbrush? That's way too easy. Just learn to properly paint them with a brush.

These are brush painted.

Don't go nuts guys, just rattling your chain ?

[bluestringer]

On 8/30/2024 at 12:42 PM, StevenGuthmiller said:

You can save yourself a bunch of money in some instances by using these instead of the little Testors bottles of enamel.

Pretty much exactly the same stuff for a fraction of the price.

 

 

 

 

Steve

Yea, don't need that much and it probably does not come in many colors to use on bodies. I mostly use Tamiya acrylics, but once in a while I'll use the Testors enamel for a car body and I've found it produces a nice finish when I mix it with the lacquer thinner 1 to 1.

[michelle]

I primarily use rust-oleum 2x spray paints and rust-oleum 2x spray primers and 2x spray clear coats 
And rust-oleum bright coat aluminum over the chrome parts and I only get result issues when the humidity gets to high then it either goes on fuzzy or does not stay glossy or takes forever to dry but after I learned this I now check the local humidity is prior to going out to my spray paint area of my garage 

But I also use other paints sometimes I use tamiya spray paints and testors extreme lacquers which are made by rust-oleum I have had issues with ese two brands also sometimes it is to watery and runs and sometimes it takes one can to get a good finish ie stays glossy all over instead of in patches  that go flat while some areas stay glossy 

i also use eastup high performance wheel paint as top coats over flat or satin or gloss rust-oleum 2x spray paints to give them a slight color shift and metallic color 

I also use apple barrel and folkart bottled acrylic craft paints for detail painting which I use dead ultra fine tip sharpies dipped in the paint and sometimes to fully brush paint the interior or miss-matched body panels 

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by michelle

[JollySipper]

10 hours ago, bluestringer said:

Yea, don't need that much and it probably does not come in many colors to use on bodies. I mostly use Tamiya acrylics, but once in a while I'll use the Testors enamel for a car body and I've found it produces a nice finish when I mix it with the lacquer thinner 1 to 1.

I haven't used the product that Steve mentioned, but on the can it says it's only 8 ozs.......... I've used that much out off the aerosol I'm using on the Camaro on just the suspension and interior.

I would absolutely LOVE to get an airbrush setup, if for no other reason than to get a better finish on those small parts that a spray can tends to drown in paint. I would most likely still use aerosols on bodies, though...........

[StevenGuthmiller]

3 hours ago, JollySipper said:

I haven't used the product that Steve mentioned, but on the can it says it's only 8 ozs.......... I've used that much out off the aerosol I'm using on the Camaro on just the suspension and interior.

I would absolutely LOVE to get an airbrush setup, if for no other reason than to get a better finish on those small parts that a spray can tends to drown in paint. I would most likely still use aerosols on bodies, though...........

They’re 8oz. cans, but the paint is WAY thicker than what’s in a rattle can. (considerably thicker than what’s in a Testors 1/4 oz. bottle)

For spraying, the paint needs to be thinned considerably, probably 2 or 3 parts thinner to one part paint, so when it’s all said and done, an 8oz. can equals probably pretty close to a quart of sprayable paint.

 

 

 

Steve

[bluestringer]

12 hours ago, JollySipper said:

I haven't used the product that Steve mentioned, but on the can it says it's only 8 ozs.......... I've used that much out off the aerosol I'm using on the Camaro on just the suspension and interior.

I would absolutely LOVE to get an airbrush setup, if for no other reason than to get a better finish on those small parts that a spray can tends to drown in paint. I would most likely still use aerosols on bodies, though...........

I used rustoleum spray cans for a while when I got back into modeling about 3-4 years ago. After I got an airbrush and started using model paints my paint jobs improved a lot. Not right away though because the airbrush has a learning curve. I still use spray cans for some stuff. I like the Rustoleum bright coat metallic spray, it represents aluminum quite well and seems to spray much better than their other cans.

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 hours ago, bluestringer said:

...I like the Rustoleum bright coat metallic spray, it represents aluminum quite well and seems to spray much better than their other cans.

Based on your recommendation, I'm going to try it.

If it works great, great.

I used some big-box metallic gold (I forget the brand) a while back to do some Olds 303 valve covers (1/25), and once I figured out how to spray it, it looked quite good. Come to think of it, I shot the engine with a big can of green, and it looked pretty good too, just about the right color for that particular engine.

                            

Photo below before I stripped the valve covers for a redo, but not bad.

Big ol' cans of consumer-grade paint can have a place in quality modeling, but you need to be aware of their limitations, and learn when and where and how to use them to best advantage.

 

Edited September 4, 2024 by Ace-Garageguy
TYPO

[bluestringer]

5 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Based on your recommendation, I'm going to try it.

If it works great, great.

I used some big-box metallic gold (I forget the brand) a while back to do some Olds 303 valve covers (1/25), and once I figured out how to spray it, it looked quite good. Come to think of it, I shot the engine with a big can of green, and it looked pretty good too, just about the right color for that particular engine.

                            

Photo below before I stripped the valve covers for a redo, but not bad.

Big ol' cans of consumer-grade paint can have a place in quality modeling, but you need to be aware of their limitations, and learn when and where and how to use them to best advantage.

 

Looks good. I think you will like the bright coat. Just put it on in light coats. I did this Chevy 2 funny car interior with it, except the roll bar I tried making it look steel with some Tamiya metallic grey.

Edited September 4, 2024 by bluestringer

[martinfan5]

On 9/3/2024 at 4:04 PM, michelle said:

I primarily use rust-oleum 2x spray paints and rust-oleum 2x spray primers and 2x spray clear coats 
And rust-oleum bright coat aluminum over the chrome parts and I only get result issues when the humidity gets to high then it either goes on fuzzy or does not stay glossy or takes forever to dry but after I learned this I now check the local humidity is prior to going out to my spray paint area of my garage 

But I also use other paints sometimes I use tamiya spray paints and testors extreme lacquers which are made by rust-oleum I have had issues with ese two brands also sometimes it is to watery and runs and sometimes it takes one can to get a good finish ie stays glossy all over instead of in patches  that go flat while some areas stay glossy 

i also use eastup high performance wheel paint as top coats over flat or satin or gloss rust-oleum 2x spray paints to give them a slight color shift and metallic color 

I also use apple barrel and folkart bottled acrylic craft paints for detail painting which I use dead ultra fine tip sharpies dipped in the paint and sometimes to fully brush paint the interior or miss-matched body panels 

 

Your results pretty much speak for themselves.

[JollySipper]

To be fair, Rustoleum has some really nice colors to choose from.......... They really look nice if you sand them flat then spray them with clear.

[Ace-Garageguy]

11 hours ago, JollySipper said:

To be fair, Rustoleum has some really nice colors to choose from...

Lookit all them purty kellors.  

[JollySipper]

They DO have some nice shades! More than DupliColor........ I guess that's because factory colors on cars nowadays are all about the same.

[StevenGuthmiller]

5 minutes ago, JollySipper said:

They DO have some nice shades! More than DupliColor........ I guess that's because factory colors on cars nowadays are all about the same.

Sure, but Tamiya has probably 5 times that many colors in a much wider variety, and it’s a lot better paint.

 

 

 

Steve

[stavanzer]

28 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

Sure, but Tamiya has probably 5 times that many colors in a much wider variety, and it’s a lot better paint.

Better for you, maybe, but much of this thread, has revolved around the fact that many other modelers, are not you, and do not have the same skills or experiences you have or have had with Dupli-color, Rust-oleam, Krylon and other paints. I am glad for your advice and glad you get the results you get, but not everybody is you.... Or Donn Yost, or Ace....

 

[michelle]

2 hours ago, stavanzer said:

Better for you, maybe, but much of this thread, has revolved around the fact that many other modelers, are not you, and do not have the same skills or experiences you have or have had with Dupli-color, Rust-oleam, Krylon and other paints. I am glad for your advice and glad you get the results you get, but not everybody is you.... Or Donn Yost, or Ace....

 

as a classic tv theme lyrics say the world don't move to the beat of just one drum what might be you may not be right for some 
i feel that these lyrics can apply to this discussion and how to view it 

Edited September 7, 2024 by michelle