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I'm starting to use mixes of Tamiya acrylic paint for airbrushing. What went wrong here? The surface: styrene spoon wetsanded with 400 then sprayed with white Tamiya Fine Surface Primer (L). The mix: Tamiya water clean-up acrylic in bottles 1 part X-13 (medium-dark metallic blue) 3 parts X-11 (chrome silver) 1 part X-22 (clear gloss) X-20A thinner (eyeball ratio to dilute for airbrushing) The spray: Iwata Eclipse at 20 psi For comparison, there is a spoon test of gloss black at the left of the photo shot under the same conditions. It's Model Master 1747 diluted with Testors Airbrush Thinner. The Tamiya makes a nice satin finish but I want it to be 1961-era glossy on an engine and frame. I could clear coat it but I'd rather figure out how to make the mix glossy.

Hello! First time poster, not new to the hobby Question I have is, how do you achieve those glassy like mirror finishes on model cars? I have sprayed Plastikote Primer on some spoons to test. I then airbrushed HOK silver enamel (from Wal Mart) by misting several coats. I then airbrushed red metallic also from HOK enamel (Wal Mart). I airbrushed Testors Glosscoat thats from that jar with the purple label. I shot multiple coats until i achieved a fairly glossy finish. After letting it dry for a few hours, I went from 3200 --> 12,000 grit, and polished with Novus #2. The result was really nice but after awhile, it looked like i lost some of that nice luster. Any tips or other brands I can try? Thanks..

Hello all, and thank you in advance for any tips and help you all can give me. You can skip to the next paragraph if you don't feel like reading the backstory of this build, it really makes no difference. I haven't built a model car since I was in grade school (I'm 25) and back then I never bothered painting them. Well once I did but that turned out horrible because I had no idea what I was doing. Not that I've learned much since then, but at least I know more these days. I got a small bonus from work in the form of a Visa gift card and I had no clue what to use it on. I was at my local hobby shop for my fiance when I noticed a model kit (I still browse through those aisles every time I'm there) of a 1987 Buick Grand National by Monogram. I absolutely love these cars and that gift card was burning a hole in my pocket. I thought to myself "I'm going to buy this kit and build it proper, with paint and what not and I'm going to put real effort in this and finish it and it will look awesome!" So I picked it up along with the correct color paints listed and some glue. My fiance said "eww, thats an old person car." I thought that was funny. So I got all of the paints required accept the black for the body. I figured I would just get a can of regular spray paint for plastics to save some money. I picked up a can of "Krylon Fusion for plastics : gloss" at my local hardware store in black. Well I painted the major body parts (after washing them) with 3 coats thinking the next day it would look like the car on the box. I was very carefull not to touch any of it and I left it on a table in my garage overnight. Well, much to my surprise, it didn't. I have pictures showing how it turned out. There seems to be a lot of uneven drying and the texture seems uneven too. Also, in a few spots on the body, lines came through that were there in the plastic when I got it. I circled them. What am I missing? Will a coat of clear gloss finish fix this? Does that even exist? Do I need more coats? Should I better control the atmosphere where it dries? Should I never have used this paint? I hope I didn't completely ruin this kit. Thanks again! Oh yeah, and I did this all a couple months ago when it was still warm outside.